To the credit of Bethlehem clergy, entrepreneurs and concerned citizens, St. Luke's Hospital was able to admit its first patient Oct. 17, 1873. The first hospital building was located on the 400 block of Broadway, in South Bethlehem. The three-story, double brick building had 20 rooms to accommodate eight beds.

Bethlehem contractor Abraham Yost built the structure originally as a double tenement house. The building was purchased for $8,000 by the St. Luke's Hospital Board. It was the first hospital in the Lehigh Valley. The closest hospital to Bethlehem before St. Luke's was more than 50 miles away in Philadelphia.

Rev. Cortland Whitehead, then rector of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity, and local entrepreneurs saw a hospital as an opportunity for providing care to Bethlehem's laborers who suffered countless railroad, mill, furnace and mine accidents. St. Luke's Hospital was chartered by legislature in 1872 with a board of trustees consisting of Robert H. Sayre, Tinsley Jeter, Rev. Cortland Whitehead and John Smylie.

Medical care was available to all patients regardless of creed, race, nationality or ability to pay. Even as the first patients were being admitted, the board sought donations of books, furniture, utensils, clothes and decorative pictures from the community.

Forty-seven patients were admitted in the first year which was more than the hospital could accommodate and there was no room to expand at the Broadway location. On Dec. 8, 1875, Tinsley Jeeter, "Father of Fountain Hill", reached an agreement with Judge Asa Packer, founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Lehigh University, to sell the water cure hospital property in Fountain Hill for $25,000. The property had two buildings and three barns on 20 acres of ground.

Judge Asa Packer donated $10,000 and secured another $5,000 from the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The St. Luke's Ladies Aid Society, a group organized by the wives of Bethlehem business leaders, raised the rest through fundraisers, such as a fair and scenic train rides.

The first patients occupied the old water cure building on May 24, 1876. In the year 1877 the hospital took in 108 cases and by 1878 the hospital had 19 beds. When Judge Packer's will was probated in 1879, he provided the hospital with $300,000 a year to pay the expenses of any employee of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Anything remaining from the bequest could go to general hospital expenses.

In 1881, at age 25, Dr. William L. Estes became the director of the hospital. He was a skillful physician who specialized in surgery. As an administrator, he had great foresight. In 1884, he established the St. Luke's Nursing School, which at the time was only the fourth nursing school in the country. St. Luke's was also one of the first hospitals to hire a pathologist and biologist in 1898. The William H. Chandler Laboratory, built in 1909, was one of the best-equipped laboratories in the United States. The hospital was one of the first to install X-ray equipment and the new concept of a Social Services Department was established in 1914. Dr. W.L. Estes and his wife, Jeanne Wynn Estes lived on Delaware Avenue, Fountain Hill with their five children. Dr. Estes retired from St. Luke's in 1920.

"From the beginning, St. Luke's has been uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the communities we serve," said Carol Kuplen, COO of St. Luke's University Hospital and Chief Nursing Officer, "Today is no exception. Beginning with a small hospital in the hills of South Bethlehem and Fountain Hill borough, to a network providing services at more than 150 sites in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Schuylkill, Bucks, Montgomery, Berks and Monroe counties in northeast Pennsylvania and in Warren County, N.J., St. Luke's University Health Network offers excellent care in a cost effective manner. "

Today, the St. Luke's University Health Network is comprised of six hospitals, with 1,356 physicians on its medical staff, primary and specialist care sites, various outpatient testing and service facilities, regional medical school campus, home health, inpatient and outpatient hospice services, the largest hospital-based EMS service in Pennsylvania and more than 1,650 volunteers. The network is the second-largest employer in the region, with more than 9,300 employees.