When the West Side Needed a Hospital, Dr. Jay O. Brinton Helped Make It Happen
When There Was No Hospital West of State Street
When the West Side Needed a Hospital, Dr. Jay O. Brinton Helped Make It Happen
It is hard to imagine today, but not all that long ago the west side of Salt Lake County had no hospital, very few doctors, and almost no local medical care. Granger, Hunter, Kearns, and Magna were still growing communities surrounded by farmland. If someone was badly injured, seriously ill, or a baby was on the way, families often had to travel across the valley for help — and in earlier years, many babies were simply delivered at home. Medical care was not something west-side families could take for granted.
That is what makes the work of Dr. Jay O. Brinton and the other early west-side physicians so important.
Dr. Brinton opened his medical practice in Magna in 1956, at a time when the west side was still desperately underserved. Families were growing, neighborhoods were spreading, and the need for doctors, emergency care, surgery, and hospital services was becoming impossible to ignore. Dr. Brinton was part of a remarkable group of physicians who saw that need firsthand and understood that west-side residents deserved quality medical care close to home.
Throughout the 1950s, a handful of dedicated doctors slowly began building medical services in Granger, Kearns, Hunter, and Magna. But office visits alone were not enough. When emergencies happened, when surgeries were needed, when mothers went into labor, or when a child became critically ill, the trip to hospitals on the east side of the valley cost precious time. For both patients and physicians, that distance could make all the difference.
So Dr. Brinton and his fellow physicians did something bold: they pushed for a hospital on the west side.
At the time, the idea was considered unrealistic by some. But the west-side doctors knew better. They knew the growth of the area. They knew the needs of their patients. They knew families in Magna, Hunter, Granger, and Kearns should not have to leave their side of the valley for every major medical need. And so they pressed forward with the vision of creating a local acute-care hospital.
That effort became Valley West Hospital.
Ground was broken on September 8, 1962, and when Valley West Hospital opened on July 22, 1963, it marked a turning point in west-side history. What began as a modest but desperately needed hospital included three operating rooms, an emergency room, labor and delivery, a laboratory, a pharmacy, X-ray services, and 40 beds. For west-side families, it was more than a building — it was security, access, and hope. It meant medical care was finally coming closer to home.
Dr. Jay O. Brinton deserves to be remembered as one of the physicians who helped make that possible. He was not simply practicing medicine in Magna; he was helping build the medical future of the entire west side. He was part of the generation of doctors who saw a serious need and refused to accept that west-side communities should remain medically overlooked.
And the hospital did exactly what those doctors hoped it would do — it grew because the community needed it. In the years that followed, Valley West expanded its beds, improved emergency services, added specialty care, and served tens of thousands of patients. What began as a bold idea by west-side physicians became one of the most important institutions in the area.
Today, the original doctors who fought for that hospital — including Dr. Jay O. Brinton — are gone. But their work remains. The hospital has changed names and ownership through the years and is now part of the St. Mark’s / CommonSpirit system, yet it still stands as a living reminder of what those early physicians accomplished. The building may have evolved, but the purpose remains the same: to care for west-side families.
That legacy matters. Long before the west side had the many services it has today, there were doctors like Jay O. Brinton who understood that a community could not thrive without medical care nearby. Because of their vision, determination, and service, generations of families in Magna, Granger, Hunter, and Kearns have had access to the care they needed, when they needed it most.
Dr. Jay O. Brinton helped bring medicine closer to home for the west side — and that is a legacy worth remembering.