Columbia Memorial Hospital

Columbia Memorial Hospital is a 25-bed medical facility in Astoria, Oregon. It is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Oregon Synod. Opened in 1927 at a different location, the hospital moved to its current location in 1977. A critical access hospital, its services include a level IV trauma center.HistoryThe start of the hospital came in 1919 when the Finnish community started to raise money for a second hospital in Astoria, to be called Columbia Hospital. The Finnish community was unable to raise enough funds, so the Lutheran Church's Augustana synod took over the fundraising. The hospital opened in 1927, located on 16th Street at Franklin Avenue. In 1958, operation of the hospital was taken over by a new corporation named Columbia Lutheran Charities, replacing the Augustana Lutheran Church. By at least 1970, the facility had been renamed Columbia Memorial Hospital.In 1970, Columbia Lutheran Charities, by this time the hospital's owner, bought St. Mary's Hospital, which had been the first such facility in the city when it opened in 1880. At the time of this acquisition, that older hospital was located at 16th and Duane streets in a building constructed in 1931 adjacent to a 1905 building that replaced the original structure. The wood-frame 1905 building had already been out of use for several years.In 1975, the hospital started a fundraising drive to provide funds for a new facility to replace the nearly 50-year-old existing buildings. Plans for the new, 65-bed, $4.7 million facility were approved by the Oregon Health Commission in December 1975. In December 1977, the new hospital opened, replacing both the original Columbia Hospital and the former St. Mary's Hospital building. The old building at 16th and Franklin was turned into a nursing home and still stands today. The St. Mary's Hospital buildings, dating from 1905 and 1931, were demolished in 1975, as the plans for a new facility were advancing.