DENVER—When it opened in the 1920s, the University of Colorado hospital was billed as the best medical facility between Kansas City and the West Coast.
This week, the whole kit and caboodle is moving to the former home of the U.S. Army’s Fitzsimons Hospital about six miles to the east in Aurora.
The 12-story university hospital is located at the Anschutz Medical Health campus—named for billionaire donor Philip Anschutz—which opened three years ago.
In a seven-day operation that began Monday, university employees have been transferring some 8,000 pieces of medical equipment and about 150 patients, most of whom are critical care patients, said Sarah Ellis, spokeswoman for the university hospital.
Ellis noted that hospitals transfer patients to other hospitals frequently to offer them specific care. However this time, about 15 ambulances were involved, making it a more complicated move.
Fitzsimons opened on a former tree farm in 1918 as U.S. Army Hospital 21. Two years later, it was renamed for one of the first four Americans killed in World War I, 1st Lt. William Fitzsimons, who died in a hospital bombing in France.
Thousands of soldiers passed through it during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War.
“We can’t begin to estimate the number of people who’ve come through the gates everyday starting back in 1918. The soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, and the Marines, and their families. The list could go on forever,” retired Army nurse Helen Littlejohn said in an Army Corps of Engineers report in February 2001.
“We taught. We conducted research. We trained. We went to war. And through it all we took care of patients. Every minute of every hour; every hour of everyday, for 78 years,” she wrote.
Fitzsimons got national attention in 1955 when President Eisenhower, visiting the hometown of his wife, Mamie, suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized in room 8022. It has been restored to its art deco style.
The hospital portion of the building closed in 1996 with the exception of a Veterans Administration clinic, Ellis said.
Today, it can barely be seen among the new medical facilities either under construction or open for business.
In addition to the CU hospital, Children’s Hospital of Denver is moving to the site and the Veterans Administration plans to build a large hospital there.
The CU hospital moved to Denver from Boulder in 1895 but returned to Boulder amid a dispute with the University of Denver. A 1910 amendment to the State Constitution allowed it to return to Denver.
The current structure, at Colorado Boulevard and Ninth Avenue, was built in 1965, and managed several other university health facilities in metropolitan Denver.
