History
In May 1890, four members of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis arrived in Sheboygan.  Father Strickner, a retired priest, who made his home on the corner of Ninth Street and Superior Avenue available to them, welcomed them.  This house became the first Hospital. Named in honor of the patron saint and the pastor of Holy Name Church, Reverend Nicholas Thill, the sisters named the hospital St. Nicholas Hospital. Reverend Thill gave the sisters counseling, encouragement, and help in planning the first Hospital.

It was this small beginning coupled with the dedication and constancy of the sisters in the health field that helped to make St. Nicholas the hospital it is today.

On May 16, 1890, just one week after the sisters’ arrival, they admitted their first patient.  He remained there 81 days.  The total cost of this stay was $66.50.  During its first five years, the Hospital admitted 30 patients.  The sisters also made hundreds of visits to patients in their homes.  Day and night, they cared for the sick and injured, rich and poor, Catholic and non-Catholic.

In the years following, the Hospital underwent many renovations. Some of the more notable include:
•	1910, a laundry and chapel
•	1916, laboratory and X-ray departments
•	1918, the Anna M. Reiss Home for the Aged
•	1924, a new building to replace all additions built through 1903
•	1939, St. Nicholas Hospital and the Anna M. Reiss Home occupied an entire city block

In 1969, the Hospital leadership closed the Anna M. Reiss Home because they believed the institution could not satisfactorily operate both the Hospital and the Home for the Aged within the limited facilities and increasing demands and regulations.

In 1971 St. Nicholas Hospital began a comprehensive review of the Hospital and the needs of the community, which ultimately ended with the recommendation “for the construction of a new facility, which would provide all the services then offered, plus other additional services that will become commonplace and standard for any general, acute care facility.”

Groundbreaking for the new facility took place in the spring of 1976 on its present 24-acre site on Sheboygan’s west side.  The transfer of patients and staff to the new St. Nicholas Hospital occurred in February 1979.

Since that time, the St. Nicholas Hospital grounds have become a medical campus housing medical office buildings for many of the Physicians' Health Network and Prevea Health Network physicians.

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