In 1956, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and thousands of citizens in the coal communities dedicated the Miners Memorial Hospital Association’s (MMHA) facilities. The system’s hospitals were located in Harlan, Hazard, McDowell, Middlesboro, Whitesburg, Pikeville and South Williamson, Kentucky; Man and Beckley, West Virginia; and Wise, Virginia. By the early 1960s, MMHA announced its intention to close some of the hospitals and soon after the Board of National Missions formed a new and independent not-for-profit health system Appalachian Regional Hospitals (ARH)–that purchased the Miners Memorial Hospitals. The health system changed its name in 1986 to Appalachian Regional Healthcare to more accurately describe its far-ranging services.