A History of Healing: Early Healthcare in Latah County
- LCHS
- Jul 29
- 7 min read
This article first appeared in the July/August 2026 edition of Home & Harvest magazine.
By Hayley Noble, Executive Director
Like many professions, homesteaders and families settling in Latah County necessitated healthcare expertise with the hard life of the American West. Latah County was no different, and with the growing populous, doctors were needed. The earliest doctors in Latah County had to be versatile, treating patients in hospitals and making house calls to the rural communities.
Moscow
Dr. Henry Blake was Moscow’s first physician in 1878 and several soon followed. By the early 1900s, the area had many clinics and hospitals with full staff to serve the growing population. Dr. James Newton Clarke was a popular doctor and many recall fondly that if a patient couldn’t pay for his services, Dr. Clarke treated them anyways. Later, patients would pay him back or gift him produce and other goods as tokens of their appreciation. He served as the city health officer from 1923-26 and was later elected mayor for a short time.
Another of Moscow’s pioneer doctors met his early demise in 1901, fictionalized in Carol Ryrie Brink’s Buffalo Coat. Dr. William Watkins was a prominent doctor and an active member of the community. Dr. Watkins was returning from a house call, when he was shot by William Steffen as he rode through town, pursued by the sheriff and a large posse of men. Steffen led the group to his home and a shootout ended when Steffen was killed.
The area saw its fair share of “childhood diseases” like diphtheria, typhoid, and polio. Folk remedies and doctors alike were used to combat these deadly diseases. Bernadine Adair Cornelison remembered her father, Dr. William Adair, treating her sister, Flora, for diphtheria, which she succumbed to in 1900. “Daddy was so terrified that the rest of us would get it. I still can remember this house, and he hung wet sheets up over each door. That was one way of hoping that the rest of us didn’t get what she had, and we didn’t.”
Moscow was not spared during the 1918 Flu Pandemic either. The town was particularly susceptible to the flu due to the influx of World War I trainees on the University campus. Able Goff recalled in the 1970s, “doctors, nurses, and volunteer nurses worked day and night. They could prescribe no remedies but aspirin, hot soup and bed rest. Moscow volunteers manned soup kitchens. Every place was pressed into service for hospitals.”
Dr. Warner H. Carither’s established the Inland Empire Hospital in 1908 at the corner of First and Jackson Streets in Moscow. At some point, ownership of the Inland Empire Hospital was transferred to Dr. Charles Magee and his wife. In 1933, Frank Robinson, the founder of the Psychiana religion and business, opened the Psychiana Clinic in that same space under direction of Dr. Magee. The clinic was short-lived and this property continued as a medical building until 1945. There is little information about the treatments received at the Clinic and how they related to Psychiana. The structure is now home to apartments and recognizable by the colorful bicycles out front.
Frank Robinson also constructed The Robinson Professional Building at the corner of Third and Jackson Streets in 1936 (now the Turnstone Flats building). That property housed many of the doctors in Moscow and one of three pharmacies that Robinson owned, although none of these businesses were connected to Psychiana.
Two of Moscow’s longest-serving doctors were Joseph G. Wilson and Doyle M. Loehr, who began their private practice in the Urquhart Building in 1932. In 1936, they moved locations to the Robinson Professional Building, where Dr. Wilson practiced there for nearly 30 years. Dr. Wilson later went on to deliver the first baby born in the new Gritman Memorial Hospital on Christmas day in 1940. After 31 years of private practice, he “hoped to have 31 years more.” Dr. Wilson retired in 1962.
Dr. Loehr stayed with Dr. Wilson for a few years but took a break to serve in World War II and returned the open the new Moscow Clinic on North Main Street with Dr. Corney J. Klaaren. Dr. Loehr retired in 1968 after practicing for 37 years. He recalled the busy time delivering babies following World War II, the increased medical costs and specialization throughout his career, caring for the Civilian Conservation Corps camps on the Lochsa and Selway Rivers and in the Elk River-Deary area, and delivering babies in homes in the early days.
Ruth Hodson, Mrs. G.F. Savage, and Mrs. J.M. Kimberling opened The Little Hospital at 220 W. Third Street in 1933. The demand soon outgrew what the house could support, and the hospital relocated to the University of Idaho, in what was later the Delta Sigma Phi house, and was renamed The Community Hospital.
The University of Idaho did not have a proper infirmary until it was able to utilize Public Works Administration funding in the 1930s. That building was later expanded in the 1950s and continues to be used as the Vandal Clinic. Dr. Justus Millard Fleming worked at the campus infirmary from 1955 to 1962.
Kendrick
After completing medical school at University of Utah, Dr. Douglas Christensen moved to Kendrick in October 1931; he immediately started treating patients. He hired Susan Davidson as a nurse, whom he worked with for 35 years. She eventually purchased a house and turned it into a nursing home for mothers and babies. Dr. Christensen and Davidson both traveled to do many, many home deliveries in their time working together. While Dr. Christensen officially practiced in Kendrick, he also traveled to Potlatch and Juliaetta.
He treated injuries that occurred during hard labor at places like the the county logging operations, gave vaccinations, treated childhood diseases like polio and typhoid, and serious illnesses related to heart attacks and cancer.
The bulk of his recollections details the sad, strange, and notable deliveries of babies in his career. Those house calls often involved traveling up the grades to the ridges in hard weather, sometimes in feet of snow to assist with births.
Surgeons were located in Lewiston, but Dr. Christensen treated just about everything else. Eventually his moved out of town to a farm in 1938: Byrne’s Flat south of Kendrick. In 30 years of practice, Dr. Christensen only missed three days of work due to illness. But by the late 1960s, his own health conditions caught up with him, and he retired Dec. 31, 1971, after a 40-year career.
Juliaetta
Dr. Foster and his wife Nannie Nichols moved from San Francisco to Juliaetta and established a medical practice there in 1903. He specialized in cancer treatments, although he claimed to treat a wide variety of ailments. The couple moved into a large home at the corner of 4th and State Streets, and Dr. Foster began practicing out of his home, establishing the Foster’s Osteopathic Sanitarium. He later changed the name to Foster School of Healing.
In 1908, Dr. Foster constructed the Stump Building at 215 Main Street to accommodate his growing practice. Around the same time, he also began teaching students in his methods. In addition to cancer treatments, Dr. Foster saw patients with issues related to digestive and nervous systems and skin disorders. Despite Dr. Foster’s legitimate certifications and training, he believed that people could heal themselves through mental suggestion, with magnetism, telepathy, natural foods, and the power of intuition. By this time, Dr. Foster seems to have moved away from western medicine, turning instead to osteopathy, suggestive therapeutics, and medical electricity. He mixed his own salves and could even cure skin cancer without a knife. Stories abounded about how he could just look at someone and diagnose their ailment without even touching them.
Some criticized his “charlatan” practices, labeled him a “quack,” while other doctors called his methods unscientific, with Foster declaring someone cancerous just to receive payment for treatment. Despite these criticisms, Dr. Foster’s methods seemed to have some success, and word spread, bringing people to Juliaetta seeking his cures. Business in Juliaetta and the surrounding areas prospered. Foster also had the reputation of a philanthropist, and did not turn patients away who could not pay him. Regardless of his critics, people praised Foster for his generosity and positive effects on Juliaetta. Additionally, Foster was a devout Christian, which kept him “on the up and up” in Juliaetta’s eyes.
Dr. Foster and his family left Juliaetta in 1911, moving to Clarkston, Washington, where he remained until his death in 1934. No one is certain why he moved, although some speculated it could have been due to strict state laws regulating medical practices. Others wondered if Foster’s broken leg obtained at the bank could have been due to an altercation or maybe the larger population in Clarkston was more appealing to his business. Nobody knows for certain why the Fosters left, but after their departure, the praise seemingly vanished. The bitterness of his leaving lead to people labeling him a “drunk,” apathetic in regard to Juliaetta, and a phony.
The healthcare history of this area is vast and varied, just like the treatments and people doctors served. The growing community in Latah County in the late 1800s and early 1900s attracted physicians to the region, with many caring for generations of families. They saw the evolution of healthcare and the changing field, from house calls in horse-pulled buggies, to state-of-the-art facilities.
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