[www.wplives.org]

Most of your questions are answered in the article at the link above.

Short form:

Yes, the hospital served the community as well as WP employees and families. Most railroad hospitals in remote areas did this.

THe hospital was built in 1911 and dedicated in 1912. In fact, today was the 99th anniversary of its completion.

It served into the early 1970s.

The WP did have other health care facilities.

Railroads were one of the first industries to provide health care services for their employees and families and were very much a forerunner of aspects of today's HMO systems. Mining companies were another early provider.

Railroad hospitals were also innovators in what we would not call paramedic services and occupational medicine.

Perhaps the most significant event to take place at the WP Portola Hospital was in September 1943, when WP Dr. McKnight used the then new drug penicillin, which had not been released for production, to treat gangrene for the first time. The patient was a 7 year old daughter of a WP employee. The drug saved her life and Dr. McKnight wrote a paper on its effectiveness. When penicilliin went into wide production in 1944, much of it was reportedly earmarked for treating gangrene in WWII soldiers.

WP employed female doctors as early as the 1930s.

The railroad hospital system is a fascinating story that has been long overlooked in the face of locomotives, passenger trains and depots. I had hoped we could use the WP Hospital to talk about the WP's medical system and railroad hospitals in general, but not that plan has obviously received a major blow.