By Silvia Pettem for the Colorado Daily
Almost everyone who has lived in Boulder for any length of time knows someone who was born, had an operation, was treated for an illness or died at the former Boulder Community Hospital on Broadway.
The building has been sold to the city of Boulder, and redevelopment plans have not yet been announced.
Now that most of the hospital’s services have been relocated to Boulder Community Health’s Foothills Hospital on Arapahoe Avenue, the former hospital building’s silent presence reminds us that it touched the lives of many of Boulder’s residents for more than ninety years.
The hospital dates to 1922, when the University of Colorado Medical School (and hospital) moved to Denver. A year earlier, a group of Boulder physicians who feared they would be without a hospital purchased a two-story house, with a sweeping verandah, on the northwest corner of Alpine Avenue and Broadway.
Named Boulder Hospital, the former home of the Hagman family was converted into a 15-bed hospital. Then the physicians deeded it to the community and formed the Boulder Community Hospital Association, but they needed funds for expansion. Citizens rallied to the cause.
“Hospitals have no holidays, nor can they declare a walk-out,” the association’s campaign chairman said from his office in the Hotel Boulderado. “The work of healing the sick and alleviating pain is not only of prime importance but never-ending.”
