The Story of our Health Message

The Porter Memorial Hospital

This was not, however, a closed account in the heart of Mr. Porter. The simple sincerity of the workers, the kindness of the personnel, the high quality of medical care received, and the unfailing integrity which he experienced made a deep and lasting impression. In April, 1928, the credit manager of the Paradise Valley Sanitarium received the following letter: SHM 416.4

April 16th, 1928 SHM 416.5

Dear Mr. ----------:
Mrs. Porter and I came home the first of this month and are quite well, thanks to your kind treatment at the sanitarium.
We have had three snowstorms and some freezing weather since we came home; today is warm and springlike.
Can you give me the address of the general manager of your various corporations, as I would like to correspond with him in regard to establishing a like institution in Denver. SHM 416.6

Yours truly, SHM 416.7

/s/ H. M. Porter SHM 416.8

Remember me kindly to Mr. Hansen, Dr. Lockwood, and your sister. SHM 416.9

This letter started a chain of negotiations which culminated in the gift of $330,000 by Henry M. Porter and his daughter, Dora Porter Mason, for the erection of the Porter Sanitarium and Hospital on a forty-acre tract of land in south Denver—a tract, incidentally, which was part of the original estate of the Porter family. SHM 416.10

Just before the close of the American Civil War Henry M. Porter and his brother decided to go west. Together they brought the first telegraph service into Denver. In these early days Mr. Porter was one of the scheduled riders on the famous pony express. The brothers staked out claim to much land on which Denver originally grew, and the present site of the Porter Memorial Hospital is part of the land originally claimed by Mr. Porter’s brother from an unexplored new West. SHM 417.1

Before the original building was complete, a further gift of $50,000 was made for the erection of a suitable nurses’ home. Thus was born the Porter Sanitarium and Hospital, now known as the Porter Memorial Hospital, the child of the Paradise Valley Sanitarium and the Glendale Sanitarium, which institutions were in turn children of the Spirit of Prophecy, which is a child of God. SHM 417.2