Sisters of Charity arrive in Leavenworth Nov. 11, 1858

On November 11, 1858, the first Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth arrived at the Leavenworth Landing after an icy trip up the Missouri River. It was 1857 when a small congregation of Sisters in Nashville, Tenn., suddenly found themselves burdened with a debt not of their making. … Fast forward … It was 1864 when the Sisters opened the first private hospital in Kansas, with the first trained nurse in the state and surely the first woman in the Western territory to run a hospital.