AHC History

Aroostook Health Center located on Highland Avenue in Mars Hill, was the first facility north of Bangor to offer extended care.  It opened its doors in 1962, first as a nursing home, for more than two decades as a hospital, and now as an intermediate care facility and skilled nursing facility that is part of TAMC.

AHC was born as the result of a 1960 meeting of Mars Hill and Blaine business people who decided there was a need to explore a local hospital in order to ensure physician coverage in the community.  Mars Hill had previously been home to two private hospitals that opened in the 1930’s.

In the fall of 1962, there was a dedication and open house for the new brick facility with fourteen room capacity. It included a doctor’s office and waiting room, kitchen, dining room, laundry, storage areas, and a maintenance area. The healthcare facility ran as a nursing home for about a year and a half, then was licensed to be a twelve-bed hospital and a twelve-bed skilled nursing facility (SNF). Later, two acute care beds were relicensed as SNF beds. In 1978 a fifty-bed nursing home was built, connected to the hospital.

In 1981, the center consolidated with neighboring A.R. Gould Memorial Hospital to the north to form The Aroostook Medical Center (TAMC).  Later that year the Grant Building was constructed to provide space for physician’s offices and much needed meeting areas.

In 1986 the ten acute care beds were de-licensed and the emergency room was closed.  Six beds were added to the SNF service.  Today the AHC Division of TAMC provides ICF level care to 55 residents and SNF levels to an additional fifteen for a total of 70 occupied beds.  The facility employs 110 full and part-time employees.