The bus stop for Bruns Hospital back in 1946 was at the corner of Lincoln and Palace avenues. Bruns Army Hospital was located on the former campus of the College of Santa Fe on Cerrillos Road. The college closed its doors in 2009 due to financial hardship. It then became the Santa Fe School of Art & Design, which also went out of business in 2018. But during World War II that area of Santa Fe was an army hospital for returning GIs. Today, that section of town is referred to as Santa Fe’s midtown campus.
St. Vincent Hospital & the Sisters of Charity
Santa Fe’s first medical center was St. Vincent Hospital. It was founded in 1865 by the Sisters of Charity out of Cincinnati. At the bequest of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, four Sisters of Charity traveled by boat, train and stagecoach to open St. Vincent Hospital. In 1883 St. Vincent Sanatorium was built and three years later destroyed by fire. In 1920 a second sanatorium opened that had electricity, steam heat and a laboratory. Thirty years later, in 1950, a new hospital was built next to the sanatorium. In 1977 the hospital moved to its current location on St. Michael’s Drive.
St. Vincent Orphanage
Founded in 1891, The St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum was under the direction of Sister Theodogin Farn and Sister Catherine Mallon. Sister Vincent O’Keefe and Sister Pauline Keo founded St. Vincent Hospital. All four nuns lived in an L-shaped adobe home with a dirt floor that later became the hospital. Two of the sisters, who had been nurses during the Civil War, had to support themselves on their way to Santa Fe by begging at mining camps and railroad stations. St. Vincent Hospital was the first organized healthcare facility in Territorial New Mexico.