1906    Drs. Henry Marshall Fullilove and J. Peebles Proctor open St. Mary’s Hospital in a residence on North Milledge Avenue. The hospital is closed in 1937 following their deaths.
     
1938   At the request of leaders of civic and medical groups in Athens, the Diocese of Georgia buys the hospital and property. Members of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reopen and operate St. Mary’s.
     
1954   St. Mary’s is accredited by the newly-formed Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals (later renamed the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations). St. Mary’s has been continuously accredited ever since, most recently in 2006.
     
1966   St. Mary’s Hospital moves from Milledge Avenue to a larger, more modern building on Baxter Street. New services include an intensive care unit. Edward J. Fechtel Jr., is named as St. Mary’s first lay administrator.
     
1970   St. Mary’s Home Health Care Services begins, the second hospital-based home health care service in Georgia. Hospice services are added in 1991.
     
1978   St. Mary’s neonatal intensive care unit opens, providing lifesaving care and technology to premature infants and extremely ill babies.
     
1983   The hospital opens a new Intensive Care Unit and adds a sixth floor to the main tower. The new medical/surgical unit brings St. Mary's licensed capacity to 196 beds.
     
1985   A free-standing Outpatient Surgical Center is opened and new space is added for radiology, cardiopulmonary, rehabilitation and more.
     
1991   St. Mary’s acquires the 120-bed Athens Health Care Center, now known as St. Mary’s Hospital Long Term Care Facility.
     
1992   New surgical suite opens, providing large new operating rooms, new pre-op and post-anesthesia recovery areas and sophisticated sterilization procedures.
     
1993   St. Mary’s changes its legal name from Saint Mary’s Hospital of Athens, Inc., to St. Mary’s Health Care System, Inc. to better reflect the continuum of care it provides.
     
1997   St. Mary’s acquires Highland Hills Village, a retirement community near Bogart, enhancing its continuum of care for people of all ages.
     
1999   The University of Georgia Athletic Association designates St. Mary’s as its official health care provider. The agreement has been continuously renewed ever since.
     
1999   St. Mary’s celebrates its change in sponsorship from the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, and its full membership in Catholic Health East. Thomas E. Fitz, Jr., becomes St. Mary’s second lay President and CEO.
     
2000   St. Mary’s announces a new emphasis in five medical specialties with the goal of becoming known as the region’s leading provider of care in: Neurosciences, Orthopedics, Women’s Health, Children’s Health and Gastroenterology. A special focus on Senior Services is added in 2002 and on Cardiac Care in 2005
     
2000   St. Mary’s, in cooperation with the Medical College of Georgia, begins offering Children’s Specialty Services, providing expert pediatric medical consultations in Athens.
     
2000   St. Mary’s introduces the StealthStation neurosurgical platform to Northeast Georgia, providing a highly accurate way for surgeons to perform certain procedures on the spine and brain.
     
2001   St. Mary’s opens the Clute Barrow Nelson Children’s Center, including the region’s largest pediatric-capable general nursing unit. The center is first of its kind in the nation to be named in honor of a child.
     
2002   St. Mary’s announces a $40 million renovation and expansion project to establish Athens’ first acute rehabilitation unit and improve neurosciences, women’s services, labor and delivery services, radiology, emergency medical care and more.
     
2002   In cooperation with Athens area physicians, St. Mary’s launches Athens’ first hospitalist program.
     
2003   The Center for Rehabilitative Medicine, a 20-bed unit devoted to the care of patients recovering from neurological disorders and major orthopedic procedures.
     
2004   St. Mary’s is certified as North Georgia’s first Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
     
2005   St. Mary’s opens the largest expansion and renovation project in its history, introduces electrophysiology and Remote EKG transmission to Northeast Georgia, and breaks ground on the Athens area’s first inpatient hospice house.
     
2006   St. Mary’s becomes one of the first hospitals in the U.S. to implant a new wireless cardiac resynchronization therapy device that can communicate vital information to physicians from the patient’s home.
     
2006   Georgia Alliance of Community Hospital's named St. Mary's "Hospital of the Year" in the large hospital category.
     
2006   PHA, the Partnership for Health and Accountability, announces that St. Mary's achieved a perfect score of 100 - the highest in the state - for quality of care delivered in 2005.
     
2006   St. Mary's introduces the regions' first 64-slice CT scanner, the Toshiba Aquilion 64 CFX.
     
2006   St. Mary's is named a Neuroscience Center of Excellence by NeuroSource. St. Mary's is one of only 46 such centers in the US and one of two in Georgia.
     
2007   In January, Athens Cardiac Arrhythmia Center opens at St. Mary's. It is the first practice of its kind in the Athens are, providing a 'one stop shop' for the care and treatment of irregular heart rhythms.
     
2007   In February, St. Mary's Center for Rehabilitative Medicine is accredited for the first time by CARF, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
     
2007   In March, St. Mary's is named one of 19 Top CARE Hospitals in Georgia by the Georgia Hospital Association, which cited excellence in 6 key healthcare measures including, patient safety, core quality measures and cost.
     
2007   In April, St. Mary's opened a new, state-of-the-art Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology Laboratory. Both labs are capable of handling the implementation of pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators.
     
2007   St. Mary's becomes one of the first 25 hospitals in the nation to be certified as a center for the care and treatment of heart failure by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.