135 Years of Healing - The History of St. John's

In 1875, a delegation of 21 Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis traveled to Illinois from Telgte, Germany. Though they spoke no English and had little money, their mission was clear: care for the sick and the poor.

Bishop Peter Baltes dispatched the Sisters to several locations throughout Illinois. For the four who came to Springfield, the old Jacob Loose residence on South Seventh Street became both home and healing center. The reputation and expertise of the Hospital Sisters grew rapidly as they traveled by horse-drawn carriage to remote farmsteads, caring for the sick in their own homes.

In 1878, the Sisters laid the cornerstone for Springfield's first hospital -- St. John's. In 1886, the St. John's Hospital School of Nursing was founded, making it the first Catholic hospital school of nursing in the United States. St. John's is now the largest hospital in the Hospital Sisters Health System, a ministry that includes 13 hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin that developed from the original mission of 21 Sisters.

Through their leadership and dedication, those first Hospital Sisters established a tradition of excellence and compassion in health care. For more than 135 years, St. John's has continued that tradition -- adopting the latest medical techniques to provide comprehensive care for the people of central Illinois.

St. John’s Hospital taken a leadership role in many important areas of medical training and health care, such as serving as one of the earliest training programs in the nation for laboratory professionals, founding the first professional school for nurse anesthetists in America, performing the first open-heart surgery in central Illinois, and providing the only Level III perinatal care center in the area.

As a major teaching hospital, we help to educate more than 300 medical students and 150 resident physicians each year through our affiliation with the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. The original St. John's School of Nursing, which has evolved into St. John's College, Department of Nursing, has trained more than 4,500 men and women since its inception.

St. John's also cares for more cardiac patients each year than any other hospital in Illinois.  Throughout all of the amazing medical advances, we have remained true to the mission of the original Hospital Sisters: St. John's Hospital provides to the people of central Illinois a ministry of value-based health services in the Catholic tradition of compassionate care, justice, and reverence for life throughout its continuum.