The clinic was best known for conducting physical evaluations of 32 astronaut candidates in 1959 which helped to select the Mercury Seven, the first Americans to travel into space.

The clinic was established in 1922 by William Randolph Lovelace (1883–1968)[3] and his brother-in-law Edgar T. Lassetter (1875–1948),[4] both of whom had originally moved to New Mexico to recover from tuberculosis.

[8] In 1950, the clinic moved from its original location on the third floor of the First National Bank Building to a new purpose-built facility at Gibson and Ridgecrest in the Southeast Heights designed by office of John Gaw Meem.

[7] In 1959, the clinic conducted physical evaluations of 32 astronaut candidates which helped to select the Mercury Seven, the first Americans to travel into space.

[20] The original Lovelace Medical Center opened in 1952 as Bataan Memorial Methodist Hospital and was remodeled and expanded in 1987.

[28][19] In 2021, the city of Albuquerque purchased the former hospital with the intention of turning it into a "Gateway Center" providing shelter and medical services for people experiencing homelessness.