Everyone in East County has heard of Mark E. Reed, the hospital. Of course, if we stop to think about it, it must be named after someone, but who? Oh, yeah, Mark E. Reed.

But who was Mark E. Reed and what did he do to get a hospital named after him? He must have been one of the first doctors in the area, right? No, not right. Mark E. Reed did not even live in McCleary. He lived in Olympia and Shelton.

So why is that building up on Reservoir Hill named after him? Let me see if I can answer some of your questions, (or my questions).

Mark Edward Reed was born in Olympia on Dec. 23, 1866. Evidently, he was a very colorful character and didn’t mind taking what he saw as calculated risks. He spent some time in Alaska after the gold rush trying to get investments in his own business dealings. I could not verify if he was successful.

Mark Reed had fallen on hard times and had a sense of fairness about him that wasn’t always in his best interests. When the country fell into a depression in 1893, and the newly formed logging company that Reed and a man named Ike Ellis had formed followed suit, his comment on that was that it didn’t mean much to go broke during a depression. He had found himself a job as a mule skinner, a high climber and he worked on the skid road. He was paid $1.60 a day and had to fork over $5 a week for room and board, but he was working.

In 1897 he was hired by Sol Simpson of Simpson Logging Company as foreman. Mark quickly took over management of the mill and even became Simpson’s son-in-law by marrying his daughter, Irene. They moved to Shelton and lived there the rest of their lives. Mark and Irene had three sons, William, Frank and Sol. Sol was killed in 1930 by a former employee of the Reeds’ timber company who had lost a leg in a logging accident two years before he shot Sol Reed, and then himself.

The Reed family still owns Simpson Investment Company and remain one of the largest land owners in the United States. Their holdings are in Washington, Oregon and California.

William G. Reed, Mark’s oldest son, was proud of his father and rightly so. He saw the need for a hospital in McCleary and a great opportunity to memorialize his father who had died in 1933. His vision first made the press sometime in the late 1940s. William made a sizable donation to the McCleary Medical Association that was newly formed with the stipulation that the hospital be named after his father. Land was donated by Harold and Eva Lobach with the Simpson company donating additional land around the original tract of land to have a large enough piece of property for a hospital.

Mark Reed served in the Washington House of Representatives from 1915-1931, serving as speaker of the House from 1923-1925.

As a legislator, Mark Reed pushed for a road to be built between Olympia and the ocean and proposed that it would run through towns, such as McCleary, Elma, Montesano and Aberdeen. Undoubtedly his vision was to help with commerce in the area. His experience in working in the woods and running the mill must have played into that wise decision. No teacher is quite as good as experience.

Mark Reed was very instrumental in the building of the hospital in Mason County which was first named Shelton General, and later the name was changed to Mason General. He was on the hospital board from the onset. The cost to build that hospital was approximately $50,000. Simpson donated $25,000 and Mark Reed donated $10,000 with the rest coming from citizens.

The hospital that was to be named after him was started in a similar way — with William Reed donating $100,000 and the citizens of the area ponying up the rest of the money and of course, the land was donated.

In July, I’ll give you a thumbnail view of Mark E. Reed Memorial Hospital.

I must thank Ron Hulscher and Joy Iversen for sharing their knowledge of the history of the man and the hospital.