Our History

Paths Converge and Create an Opportunity  

By the late 1990s, however, the sustained success and growth of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center at Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard ran into space limitations. The city of Denver had grown around the campus and neighborhood growth restrictions meant a new home would be needed to enable the university to continue providing transformative health discoveries for Colorado and the world.

At the same time, the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora was slated for closure by the military, as many of its functions had moved to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Noting the historical importance of a major health center in Colorado and envisioning the promise and potential of centralizing and connecting health education, care and research on a single campus, local, state and university leaders worked together with the goal of acquiring the land from the military and transforming the historic Fitzsimons army base and hospital in Aurora into an innovative health sciences community. It would be the new home for the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and its programs.

A New Academic Health Sciences Campus Is Formed

Construction on new facilities began in the late 1990s and early 2000s at the Fitzsimons campus. In 2006, the campus was renamed the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in recognition of more than $90 million in initial philanthropic investments from The Anschutz Foundation. The support from The Anschutz Foundation was directed to help in the construction of brand new education, research and patient care facilities on the grounds. 

Two years later, the academic and research operations of all CU health sciences schools and colleges relocated to the new campus on the former army base grounds. The years following the move also saw the School of Nursing change its name to the College of Nursing and the founding of a brand new School of Public Health for the state, founded as a collaborative venture between the University of Colorado, Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado in 2008. Shortly thereafter in 2011, the School of Pharmacy became the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences – following a gift from the Skaggs family and ALSAM Foundation. UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado also joined in the move to CU Anschutz, to realize the vision of a fully integrated health sciences campus now supporting more than 2 million patient visits annually. 

CU Anschutz in the Present Day: Looking Toward the Future

The CU Anschutz footprint has also enabled pivots to meet the health science needs and challenges of the 21st century. The Anschutz Health Sciences Building, completed in 2021, was designed specifically to drive collaboration across disciplines – particularly in translational health science research, mental and behavioral health, education and personalized clinical care. Alongside the Anschutz Health Sciences Building, the Bioscience facilities and Fitzsimons Innovation Community continue generating new forms of collaboration between our faculty and researchers and industry partners. 

Despite all the changes across the decades, the campus has never lost its spirit of service. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, every member of campus – faculty, students and staff – contributed to the pandemic response. From treating patients, to vaccine development and trials, to helping state and national leaders with data and policy, alongside support operations to keep the campus operational, CU Anschutz collectively responded to save lives and deliver hope and healing. 

Through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, CU Anschutz remains committed to the Colorado community it has called home for nearly 150 years. Driven by a mission to solve the most pressing problems in health, CU Anschutz is committed to addressing disparities in healthcare, improving community health through strong local partnerships and expanding education opportunities for future leaders in health and medicine.

Prior to CU Anschutz, the campus was home to the U.S. Army’s Fitzsimons General Hospital. Originally known as General Hospital 21, the base was planned as a military hospital by the U.S. Army during World War I to treat soldiers suffering from tuberculosis and other lung diseases, opening in 1918. The base was later renamed to honor Lieutenant William Thomas Fitzsimons, the first U.S. Army officer killed in World War I. 

The interwar period brought challenges to Fitzsimons, as budget constraints and the Great Depression placed strain on the base and army hospital. Efforts by Colorado’s congressional delegation led to commitments from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress to construct a new central building for the Fitzsimons Army Medical Hospital, Building 500 – today known as the Fitzsimons Building. The building’s aim was to continue treating tuberculosis and other medical conditions on a larger scale,      

The hospital was dedicated on December 3, 1941. Following the outbreak of World War II, as one of the largest and most modern military hospitals in the country, the Fitzsimons base played a key role in caring for sick and wounded soldiers during the war.

The Fitzsimons base has even provided care to the commander in chief. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack while visiting Denver and spent over a month recovering at Fitzsimons. As his health improved, he often spent time on the large eighth-floor sundeck where he used binoculars to observe the mountains.

The second half of the 20th century saw Fitzsimons base continue to provide innovative care for members of the armed services. In 1960, Fitzsimons was designated an army clinical specialist school by the U.S. Army to act as a professional school for military members, while also adding the army medical equipment and optical school in 1963. Through the intervening decades, Fitzsimons continued to heal, teach and train members of the military, while also paving new ground by launching several rehabilitation programs for amputee patients including skiing and horseback riding. 

Fitzsimons was slated for closure by the military in 1995 and officially closed in 1999.

CU Anschutz maintains this connection to the military history of the Fitzsimons base in the present day by caring for veterans on campus and new medical discoveries through the Center for COMBAT Research.