{"id":20020,"date":"2022-02-11T15:58:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T20:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=20020"},"modified":"2022-02-11T15:59:10","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T20:59:10","slug":"lakeland-history-culture-center-lakelands-first-black-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/02\/11\/lakeland-history-culture-center-lakelands-first-black-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland History & Culture Center: Lakeland’s First Black Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1914, the Morrell Hospital opened as Lakeland’s first community hospital. At that time, Lakeland was a racially segregated town. The African-American community, led by Dr. D. J. Simpson, was also growing and in need of a dedicated, local hospital. Medical care was performed in the patient’s home, but the very ill had to travel 40 miles to a Tampa hospital. In 1919, citizen activist Ben Sullivan appeared before the city commission, urging the establishment of a black hospital. Private funds were solicited via newspapers, and when a bond issue passed in 1924 to build a larger hospital, it also included $25,000 for building a separate facility for black patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In August of 1926, the hospital opened two blocks north of 10th Street and one block west of Dakota Street. Designed by architect A. J. Poteet and built by Billman-Purdy Co., the single-story hospital housed 20 beds in two wards and offered six private rooms. A kitchen, dining room, and operating suite were included as well. The hospital was staffed by professional nurses and also offered a nurses training program. In 1934, the hospital was closed for refurbishment, but it never reopened due to the cost of staffing the hospital. A few years later, the building was occupied as a preschool. During this time, a small portion of the larger Morrell Hospital was designated for black patients until the 1960s, at the urging of Dr. John S. Jackson, the hospital became integrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about the Lakeland History & Culture Center coming soon to the Lakeland Public Library at LakelandGov.net\/CultureCenter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1914, the Morrell Hospital opened as Lakeland’s first community hospital. At that time, Lakeland was a racially segregated town. The African-American community, led by Dr. D. J. Simpson, was… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2364],"class_list":["post-20020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-lakeland-history-culture-center-lakelands-first-black-hospital"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}