Site of Contractor's General Hospital

Sidney Garfield built a twelve-bed hospital out here in 1933 for the men digging the Colorado River Aqueduct, could not get his bills paid, and switched to taking a few cents per worker per day in advance instead. Henry Kaiser was one of the contractors watching. That arrangement became Kaiser Permanente. Nothing is left of the hospital, and this is not the state's 1992 plaque either: that one stood at Desert Center and went missing. Its replacement was rewritten to suit the new spot, six miles west becoming thirteen miles east.

What the plaque says

In 1933, Dr. Sidney R. Garfield opened Contractors General Hospital thirteen miles east of here. This facility successfully delivered high quality health care to Colorado River Aqueduct workers through an innovative prepaid insurance plan. Later, in association with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, Dr. Garfield applied the lessons he first learned at this hospital to create their enduring legacy: Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit prepaid health care program.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Joshua Tree National Park — 21 mi
  Where the high Mojave meets the low Colorado, among monzogranite piles and a yucca that is not a tree.
• Bombay Beach — 21 mi
  The lowest town in America: a drowned resort turned open-air art colony, 223 feet below sea level.
• Cholla Cactus Garden — 22 mi
  Ten acres of teddybear cholla that look soft and are anything but, at the seam between two deserts.
• Salton Sea — 24 mi
  California's largest lake, made by accident in 1905 and shrinking ever since.

More markers nearby

• Camp Young — steps away