Location: Wendover Avenue at Elwell Avenue in Greensboro
County: Guilford
Original Date Cast: 2018
During the summer of 1948, polio began rapidly spreading through North Carolina. In that year, the state attributed 147 deaths to the virus, with 2,517 total cases recorded. The outbreak in Guilford County was the highest per capita not only in North Carolina but in the entire U.S. that year, and area hospitals struggled to provide proper care for the multiplying patients. Greensboro and communities across the state mobilized quickly and raised the funds for the construction of the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital (CCCH).
Polio patients traveled from across North Carolina to receive care at the facility. Swift construction, cutting-edge treatments, and the wide range of people served made the hospital a place of community pride and state significance. After its closure as a polio hospital in 1958, the building was repurposed in a variety of ways, most notably as a makeshift jail for civil rights protesters in 1963. The CCCH, which had a complicated history as both a hospital and a temporary jail, had a long-lasting impact on the region.
When the 1948 outbreak began, it became clear that Greensboro needed a more permanent facility. Until that time, patients had been isolated and cared for at the Greensboro Record building and in a recreation facility at the World War II Overseas Replacement Depot. The number of polio cases in 1948 overwhelmed the buildings with patients, and the community began fundraising for a new hospital. Local civic groups set the original goal for the hospital fund at $60,000, but by early October the donations far exceeded that amount. Overall, people donated $170,000 in materials and labor, and raised $325,000 in cash donations.
The half-million-dollar fundraising effort attracted state and national attention, as newspapers reported that people had sent donations in from all parts of North Carolina and beyond. Additional funds came from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Volunteers poured in from places like Burlington, Lexington, Winston-Salem, Leaksville, and Charlotte to help build the hospital. Life magazine even sent two reporters to Guilford County to cover the details of the remarkable community effort, which involved an expanded “mile of dimes” campaign, county-wide auction, and nightly radio show.
Construction of the CCCH began in July 1948, and the facility opened on October 11, just ninety-five days after fundraising began. The hospital sat on the eastern edge of Greensboro’s city limits. The location of the facility was ideal because it could care for the high concentration of polio cases in Guilford County and its central location provided easy access for people from the rest of the state. Many patients came from Guilford, Alamance, and Forsyth Counties and others traveled from points farther away, including Charlotte and Rocky Mount, seeking the innovative treatments that the doctors provided.
The hospital was a single-story, white cinder block building comprised of seven wings with 134 beds, an operating room, and rehabilitation rooms. Doctors used Sister Elizabeth Kenny’s Hot Pack method along with hydrotherapy, which utilized a wading pool, treatment tanks, and whirlpools. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis donated iron lungs, hot pack machines, and other much needed medical supplies. An on-site school ensured that children did not fall behind on learning as they healed.
The CCCH was unusual because it was a racially integrated facility from the outset. While many hospitals in the region were racially segregated, the CCCH treated and employed whites and African Americans. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which provided funding for the hospital, had a policy of providing services to patients regardless of race, age, or creed.
By the late 1950s, polio cases in Greensboro had declined, largely because of the mass distribution of the Salk vaccine in 1955. The CCCH was no longer needed for polio treatments, and in 1958, the facility shifted its focus to general rehabilitation. The history of this hospital resembles the story of the polio hospital in Hickory, where the community similarly came together in the face of an epidemic. The CCCH was different, however, because it served patients from across the state, focusing on long-term convalescence for ten years—the duration of the polio threat. In comparison, the polio hospital in Hickory served as a temporary emergency facility and operated for nine months.
By the spring of 1963, the former polio hospital had closed, and the site became part of the Greensboro’s struggle for civil rights. In May 1963, over one thousand marchers participated in nonviolent demonstrations in an effort to desegregate movie theaters and restaurants. Police detained hundreds of student protesters from North Carolina A&T, Bennett College, and Dudley High School, overwhelming the city’s jails.
The former hospital was repurposed as a makeshift jail that held many protesters, particularly ones from Bennett College. Conditions at the site were poor and the number of students far exceeded the capacity of the building. Ultimately, the protests caused the mayor to call for all businesses to desegregate. By the fall of 1963, just a few short months later, a large number had complied. With this action, the site of the former hospital became a part of Greensboro’s civil rights history, which shaped the movement in the state of North Carolina and beyond.
References:
Greensboro Daily News, August 4, 1944; July 17, October 13, 1948; May 16, 20, September 15, 1963
Wilmington News, March 27, 1958.
Rocky Mount Telegram, October 19, 1956; July 27, 1950
Greensboro Record, August 31, 1948; January 3, 1949; May 20, 1963
Asheville Citizen-Times, July 4, 1948
Norris Hadaway, Speeches on Greensboro’s Response to the Polio Epidemic, c. 1948-49, Guilford Vertical Files, Greensboro Public Library
Time, August 30, 1948.
High Point Enterprise, July 9, 11, 15, 1948
Burlington Daily Times-News, July 20, 1948
William B. Lee, Letter Sent to Guilford County Churches Regarding Polio Hospital Drive,” High Point Junior Chamber of Commerce, July 1948
"National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis Service Program," National Negro Health News 14, no. 4 (October-December 1946).
North Carolina State Board of Health, Thirty-Third Biennial Report of the North Carolina State Board of Health, 1948-1950
Robert Phillips, Minutes on the Closure of the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital, 1959, Cone Health Medical Library, Robert Phillips Collection, box 5, fol. 60
C. Mayo Selz, Negro Hospital and Medical Care Facilities in North Carolina (1945)
Linda B. Brown, Belles of Liberty: Gender, Bennett College, and the Civil Rights Movement in Greensboro, North Carolina (2013)
William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (1981)
David M. Oshinsky, Polio: An American Story (2005)
Alice E. Sink, The Grit Behind the Miracle (1998)
John S. Stevenson, “Everybody’s Hospital: A Brief History of the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital," North Carolina Medical Journal 27, no. 27 (Jan. 1966): 23-28