The old Dr. Mary Fisher Clinic building is gone. Certainly it was not as historic as the old buildings on main but, in its own way, it did hold community history.
Some years ago when we were near opening the new Dr. Mary Fisher Medical Center the Upper San Juan Hospital District asked me to do research on the old building and the people who built it. The idea was to do a plaque to be placed on the new building as a way of remembering and honoring the past. The research was done and the plaque made but during the turmoil that followed at the district it was evidently “lost.” Recently Mark Wienpahl called to say he found it.
The research was interesting for a history buff like my self. It required many hours at the Sisson Library going through miles of film strips of old newspapers from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. Many of the miles included getting sidetracked by discovering other stories and following them for years of newspaper articles.
In the middle of the last century the old time doctors of Pagosa retired or left leaving a medical need that was hard to fill. People are flocking to Pagosa right now but this hasn’t always been the case. Pagosa was considerably more remote and bedraggled back then. The good citizens realized that if they were to going to draw and keep a doctor they would need to build a proper doctor’s office. It became obvious after reading old SUN articles and reading between the lines that Glenn Edmonds, owner and editor of the SUN, was a major promoter and supporter of the idea. He led much of the project from the front and editorial pages of the paper. At first he preached the need and later helped form a committee and carried on until the grand opening. He didn’t take much credit but it was obvious he had an important, if not THE important, role.
Back then the Sears and Roebuck Company was interested in America’s rural population. It was this population that made Sears the giant it was, ordering merchandise through the famous catalog long before malls and Wal-Mart took over. Sears provided funds and help and were important in Pagosa’s new clinic. The building itself was directly from catalog pages. Back then Sears sold entire prefab houses and small building from the catalog. Along with Sears’ help the committee sold “shares” in the building and the community bought enough to see the project to completion. Many old time families still have those shares in a trunk in the attic.
It was a grand day with a big opening party when the building was finished. It looks tiny now but, it was a big deal back then! And, they were right, soon enough they had the first of a series of doctors who worked from the building. It served the community from the late 1950’s to 1996.
That may not be long enough to be historically preserved but, think of the citizens who took their first breath in that structure and, of course, the people who breathed their last there also. It was named after Dr. Mary Winter Fisher 30 years after her passing by people who remembered the great woman.
I remember it as the husband of Ruth Vance, the last nurse to serve there. She became Mark Wienpahl’s nurse shortly after he arrived in Pagosa and they both worked there till the closing of the doors. It was in decline during this time. I had many years as a convenient volunteer shoveling snow, helping patients in and out and fighting termites. I can still remember Mark on the roof with a bucket of tar and a mop trying to stop leaks. How many other, more dramatic, tales could be told if only the people were still with us?
There is history in age and stone but history can reside in a Sears and Roebuck prefab also. Now that we are living in Pagosa Springs’ “new age” its only fault, it wasn’t new!
