Roper Hospital North (originally known as Baker Hospital) was founded in 1912 by Dr. Lawrence R. Craig and Dr. Archibald E. Baker, Sr., who purchased Dr. Craig’s interest in the facility four years later. The original five-story wooden frame hospital was located on Colonial Lake at the intersection of Ashley Avenue and Beaufain in downtown Charleston.

In the mid-1930s, following the death of Dr. Archibald Baker, Sr., the hospital was re-chartered as a not-for-profit corporation and renamed The Baker Memorial Sanatorium. Dr. Archibald Baker, Jr. operated the facility until the end of WWII when illness forced him to resign.

In 1949, a group of local physicians leased the facility and shared responsibility for its management until February 1963 when the Board of Trustees purchased the physical plant and property from the Baker family. In the late 1960s, the hospital was converted to a not-for-profit organization.

In December, 1976, the Board of Directors of Baker Hospital filed a CON to renovate and expand the existing facility. When efforts to secure the re-zoning required from the City of Charleston for the new construction failed, the Board determined to build a new facility with 60 acute care beds and 44 intermediate/skilled nursing home beds in the City of North Charleston at a site on the Ashley River off what is now Speissegger Drive.

Construction of a new general hospital, more than three times as large as the previous facility, was completed in 1981. Approximately eight acres of the 147-acre North Charleston site was sold to the Browns School of Texas which constructed a 102-bed freestanding psychiatric hospital, the first private psychiatric hospital in the state. In addition, another 5 acres was purchased by a group of physicians and dentists who constructed a 25-office medical building on the campus.

Recognizing the need for a strong partner, the Baker Board entered into discussions with the Medical Society of South Carolina, the parent organization of Roper Hospital. After several months of negotiation, the affiliation between Roper and Baker Hospitals was completed on July 8, 1992. The following year, after consulting with the descendants of the Baker family, the hospital’s name was changed to Roper Hospital North to reflect this new affiliation.