SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital celebrated its 120th birthday Saturday with numerous events throughout the morning. The main goal was to celebrate the history of St. Mary's.

The hospital celebrated with Mass, along with a series of children's activities and entertainment.

St. Mary's made health care more accessible to people in the early 1900s. Scott Grimwood, SSM Health's archive manager, said there wasn't a high-quality care option in mid-Missouri at the time.

"It gave the ability for people to get high quality care without having to worry about traveling to either Kansas City or St. Louis to get it," Grimwood said. "And then of course it became a pillar of the community, so many people come down today to talk about people that were born here, their kids, their grandparents born in the

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