HGB History

An eccentric music teacher who went by the name of Professor Clark began to construct a mansion he called Hollyhurst to impress his fiancée. The fiancée must not have been impressed enough, however. She jilted Clark before the mansion was complete. The heartbroken Clark abandoned the mansion, and the mortgage holder took possession. The mortgage holder’s name? Henry Hayes.

Mr. Hayes did not desire to live in Hollyhurst, so he hired a housekeeper to take care of the place. Her name? R. Ellen Green.

For years, Mr. Hayes’s intention was to eventually donate the mansion to Eaton County for the establishment of the county’s first modern hospital, but he died before completing his plan. Ms. Green honored his wishes, however, and in 1933, she donated the mansion to the Eaton County Board of Supervisors (now Board of Commissioners), and the hospital was dubbed the Hayes Green Hospital.

Less than two decades later, the local healthcare demands already had outgrown the mansion. In the early 1950s, a major fundraising effort led to the construction of a new facility neighboring the mansion. The fundraising effort was spearheaded by a local philanthropist named Fitch H. Beach.

Largely driven by the charitable support of the local community, the hospital has continued to make progress in healthcare quality – most notably with the recent completion of Imagine HGB in 2005. Now, the hospital stands poised as a place where Eaton County residents can confidently receive quality care from high-caliber physicians and professionals with a wide range of capabilities and extensive relationships.