A Healing Sanitarium

A Healing Sanitarium. Historic Sailfish Trail. Back in the 1900s, Stuart locals were a healthy lot, and thanks to balmy temperatures, endless sunshine, and salty air, visiting northerners often found they regained their good health too. No wonder the entire region came to be known as “a healing sanitarium.”, Despite the general good health, the 1920s land boom and population increase led to the need for a local hospital, if only for emergencies and maternity cases. In 1926 Carroll Dunscombe donated the wood frame house across the pond from you on Coconut Avenue and 5th Street for a nonprofit hospital. $10,000 was raised for supplies, and in August the St. Lucie Sanitarium opened with a five-bed ward downstairs, plus five private rooms upstairs and a nursery., With segregation denying African-Americans treatment at the sanitarium, a house rented in East Stuart in 1933 served as a separate hospital. During the Great Depression both facilities foundered financially as patients struggled to pay their bills., The hospital survived and thrived. In 1937 the 1-acre pond named “Lake Janet” for Dunscombe's wife (later called “Hospital Lake” or “Hospital Pond”) overflowed when ten inches of rain fell in a day. Undaunted, Dr. Van Williams Burns paddled to work in a rowboat. But by 1938 the community realized it needed a larger hospital to care for all citizens regardless of race., William S. Barstow of Jupiter donated $100,000 to build a hospital on 6-and-a-half acres of city-owned land on the St. Lucie River. The Reed Family of Hobe Sound donated funds for equipment and many county citizens contributed to a building and operating fund. The new $150,000, 25-bed Martin County Hospital opened in March 1939 with a delivery room, nursery, lab, x-ray room and two operating rooms. The hospital is still in existence today as Martin Health System. The old St. Lucie Sanitarium returned to its previous life as a private residence., Captions: , (Top) A local pineapple grower, Carroll Dunscombe, donated this two-story house as a nonprofit hospital in the 1920s. , (Middle) The new Martin County Hospital replaced the St. Lucie Sanitarium in 1939. , (Bottom) Dr. Floyd Eurit was one of the first doctors to work at the St. Lucie Sanitarium., For more local history, visit the Stuart Heritage Museum in the Stuart Feed Store building (www.stuartheritagemuseum.com) or the Elliott Museum (www.elliottmuseum.org)..