PA Photos and Documents

After nearly eight years of preparation and construction that began with a 1944 discussion among Meyersdale Rotary Club members, the Meyersdale Community Hospital opened its doors to the public on September 4, 1952, kicking off a four-day celebration culminating in the September 7 dedication of the new medical facility. “The hospital is a very excellent example of what can be done with community spirit, and it is proof that once a community finds itself and realizes the spirit actually exists, there is no job too large to be undertaken,” the Meyersdale Republican newspaper noted in its September 4, 1952, edition. Though the medical facility has undergone many changes in the over seven decades that have passed since then, its doors remain open to members of southern Somerset County’s rural communities. Today known as Conemaugh Meyersdale Medical Center, the critical access hospital is an accredited chest pain center providing emergency care in addition to outpatient, imaging, diagnostic, and specialty services. The photographs shared here are part of a larger collection of images representing the rural medical facility’s earliest years.