Palmerton Hospital has a long and storied history as the first hospital in Carbon County.

Groundbreaking for the hospital took place on June 8, 1907, and it was formally opened on May 5, 1908, but it took 18 years before it gave its first report contained in the 1926 Annual Reports of Palmerton and Freemansburg for the New Jersey Zinc Co.The annual report provided a sociological report showing how it provided public health nursing services, including a prenatal clinic, well baby clinic, tuberculosis clinic, the Princeton Avenue Bath House (24 cents per bath), playgrounds, kindergarten and camps, but it was clear that the hospital was the company's crowning achievement in public health as it devoted an entire section just to the hospital.It is apparent from the report that the hospital was too small when it was originally built as an 11-bed hospital. While it treated only 131 patients in its first year, within two years the hospital's demand caused it to increase capacity to 30 beds with a ward added to the east end of the hospital. Two years after that, a larger operating room was built. By 1916 children's (14 beds) and maternity (12 beds) wards were added, pushing the hospital to 65 beds and 10 bassinets. There were six private rooms. In 1926, sprinklers were constructed throughout most of the hospital for safety reasons.The hospital was one of the first of that size approved for accreditation without reservation in the first survey of hospitals by the American College of Surgeons. That may be because it had everything larger hospitals had at the time, including a surgical preparation room, a sterilizer room, an anesthesia room - all to support the operating room.It had the latest X-ray equipment and a laboratory equipped for chemical, bacteriological and pathological studies. An autopsy room was in the basement. A resident physician lived on the second floor of the hospital, so someone was always on-call 24 hours a day.Formed in 1910, The Training School for Nurses was a three-year program, which "preferred" high school graduates. All practical and theoretical work required in the state mandated curriculum was covered the first year. A 70 percent average was needed to pass.Through 1926 only two students had been dismissed - one as she was generally unfit to be a nurse and the other for shoplifting at a local store. It was noted that part of a nurse's job was to take 10-by-1-yard bolts of gauze bandages and cut them by hand to the sizes required.Proudly it was announced that beginning in 1926, this was changing as the hospital was buying the sizes they needed at no extra cost.Then as now, hospital billing and charges were a key focus in the report. Staff members and their families received free hospital care. Palmerton graduate nurses, physicians not on staff and clergymen, along with their families, received a 50 percent discount. Initially a general ward bed was $2 a day with private rooms at $4 per day. The delivery room was $5 per day. Use of the operating room was up to $10 per operation. Laboratory fee was $1.By 1926 the hospital had grown to where it treated 20,627 patients and 1,058 operations were performed per year. A detailed report shows that the actual costs for a general ward bed had gone up to $4.77 per day. After a study of nearby hospitals' rates showed them charging an average of $3 per day, the hospital raised its daily rate to $2.50, undercutting the room rate of all the Allentown hospitals and Coaldale Hospital. The difference was made up in other charges. The hospital served an area from White Haven in the north, Saylorsburg on the east, Treichlers on the south and Tamaqua on the west from the same location it is currently is located.