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e hospital closed for 18 months during its early years due to a shortage of funds, but surged to life in 1902 with the support of community donations and the new leadership of Superintendent Augusta Ariss. Educating healthcare workers was paramount to the female leaders of both hospitals. e Sisters of Providence opened the Columbus School of Nursing in 1894 – just two years aer their arrival in Great Falls. Likewise, Ariss established Deaconess Nursing School in 1902, within her first year in town. It was the largest nurses' training facility in Montana by 1921. Great Falls' medical facilities went through a myriad of changes, growth, triumphs and hardships during the decades that followed. Both hospitals expanded to various new locations as technology and medical advancements forged ahead at breakneck speed. On July 1, 1996, Columbus Hospital and Deaconess Hospital came together to merge their wide variety of specialties and services into a single entity, thereby establishing today's Benefis Health System. e health system's name comes from "bene," the Latin root-word for good, and "fis," which means trust and faith. Benefis is now the largest nongovernmental employer in Cascade County, and is one of the state's three largest health systems, says Benefis System Communications and Business Development Vice President Kaci Husted. According to a 2018 University of Montana study aimed at quantifying Benefis Health System's impact on the surrounding region, the health system directly or indirectly accounts for 6,600 jobs in Northcentral Montana – 2,600 of which have been added since 1990. at's a growth of 62 percent in an area where employment as a whole has remained fairly constant. If Cascade County continues to progress at the nationally forecasted rate, another 1,300 local healthcare jobs are projected to be added by 2026. SiG MT 34 Educating the next generation of healthcare workers was a central goal for both hospitals. The early 1900s brought a wave of innovative tools and technologies to the medical field. The 350-bed Columbus Hospital received its first patients in May of 1930.