Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital
| Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1944 |
| Construction Began | 1946 |
| Opened | 1950 |
| Closed | 1973 |
| Current Status | Preserved |
| Building Style | Single Building |
| Architect(s) | Gillig-Hartstern and Wilson |
| Location | Madisonville, KY |
| Architecture Style | Art Deco |
| Alternate Names |
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History
The Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital, also known as the District One State Tuberculosis Hospital, individually meets National Register Criterion A. The former sanatorium is significant for its association with Kentucky's public health campaign to eradicate tuberculosis, as detailed in the MPS historic context, "The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement in Kentucky, 1907 - 1975."
Although Kentucky formed a tuberculosis commission in 1912, sanatoria largely remained in the hands of local and county organizations for the next three decades. The state's construction of five 100-bed tuberculosis hospitals in the late 1940s marked a transition from smaller county-operated sanatoria to larger modern district hospitals. Plagued for decades by a large percentage of tuberculosis cases, Kentucky sprang into action after World War II health inspections exposed the poor health of its citizens. In 1945, Kentucky initiated a state-wide effort to curtail tuberculosis deaths in the Commonwealth. Aided by the 1940s discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin, the sanatoria offered a modern cure to thousands of TB patients.
Construction on the four-story 100-bed facility commenced in 1946 with the cornerstone laid by Governor Simeon Willis on August 9, 1946. The $1.5 million dollar project entailed a five-building complex on the Ramsey property in northeast Madisonville. Dedicated on September 29, 1950, Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital joined the Paris and Glasgow hospitals as the third of five state sanatoria constructed in the late 1940s to treat Kentucky’s tubercular patients. Although separated from the other state tuberculosis hospitals, Madisonville adhered to the same standard fivebuilding layout – main hospital building, director’s residence, staff residence, nurses’ residence, and combination boiler house and laundry – designed by architects John T. Gillig and Fred J. Hartstern of Lexington and John F. Wilson of Louisville (Commonwealth of Kentucky).
The Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital functioned as a public health educational center for its district. In a collaborative effort between the Hopkins County Tuberculosis Association and radio station WFMW, the hospital produced a twenty-six week series of fifteen-minute radio broadcasts on the role of the hospital in tuberculosis treatment and prevention. As part of the series, interviews were conducted with both patients and staff members at the Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital. By the 1960s, the use of the triple therapy as a drug treatment had practically eradicated the long-term need for tuberculosis sanatoria. The Kentucky Tuberculosis Sanatoria Commission, however, remained adamant that the sanatoria were needed to keep tuberculosis under control.
Despite the effort to expand the mission of the hospitals, the twenty-year anniversary of the tuberculosis state sanatoria saw the 112-bed capacity of Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital and its fellow sanatoria underutilized. The effective triple therapy drug treatment of tuberculosis eventually led to the decommissioning of the tuberculosis hospitals in the mid-1970s. The Madisonville Tuberculosis Hospital illustrates Kentucky's mid-twentieth-century response to the tuberculosis epidemic and is a valuable piece of early modern hospital architecture in the Commonwealth.
