... [But], as history records, this Women's Shakespeare Club's project ended well and proved to be much ado about something pretty special: medical care.

The hospital opened at its original Barr Street location on Oct. 17, 1904, and the first patient was a woman who was “traveling with her husband in a horse and carriage from the village of Midland in Chartiers to Canonsburg when the berserk horse sent them flying.”[1] The following year, the hospital opened a nursing school, which remained in operation until 1960.

The “new” Barr Street hospital eventually named its dining room after Perry Como, the famous singer who born in Canonsburg in 1912.

At the time in Pennsylvania, new hospital construction had to be approved by the state through a “certificate of need.”[1] The application for a certificate of need was initially rejected by the state on the grounds that existing hospitals in the area had enough capacity to handle projected patient volume, but Canonsburg-area residents lobbied then-Pennsylvania Gov.

The hospital primarily serves residents living in Southern Allegheny and Northern Washington counties.