The first county hospital was established at Pleasant Springs in 1858, and remained there until 1869, when it was moved to the Gold Hill Road House west of town, near the intersection of Highway 49 and Pool Station Road.  In 1890, the Board of Supervisors purchased land east of town and erected a new, two- story frame building that served the county until the Mark Twain District Hospital was dedicated in 1951..  The present Government Center is located on the old hospital grounds, with the Red Barn (former hospital dairy) and the hospital cemetery (with some 600 interments) the only traces of its former function.