The Ganado Mission was established in 1901 by the Presbytery of Arizona through the Board of Home Missions. A decade later, the board approved a 12-bed hospital at Ganado. This was the first non-governmental funded hospital on an Indian reservation in the U.S. Approximately 60 buildings were built before 1957, including: first manse, the first building on the site (1903) used as a residence, church, and school; Adobe West (1911), a dormitory built to accommodate boys and girls, a teacher's residence, a kitchen, pantry, and dining room; Dining Hall (1920) one of the oldest and largest two-story adobe structures in the U.S., and the largest adobe structure in Arizona; and Almira College (1929), the first public school in Apache County. The Sage Memorial Hospital School of Nursing was the nation's first accredited nursing training program for Native American women.
Over the last three decades, drainage issues have detrimentally affected the foundations of some of the structures due to uncontrolled runoff and soil expansion. Unabated, the differential settlement may cause the foundations to shift and the structures to fail. The wiring in the buildings is outdated, and in some cases a hundred years old, creating potential fire hazards, and a water storage reservoir does not hold enough water for fire protection.
[For more information, contact Reverend Kenneth Moe at 602-468-3820 or e-mail.]
