Junior Order of Mechanics Hospital
1900's Concerned
about the effects of recent typhoid and smallpox epidemics,
members of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics
decided it was time for the growing town of High Point to
have a hospital, so they purchased and renovated a two-story
frame house on Boulevard Street and went about the business
of preparing it for patients. While the men gathered donations
of furniture, the ladies collected sheets to make the first
hospital beds. The facility made ready for its patients
in the summer of 1904 with an open house, cookies and lemonade.
The hospital had room for 12 patients and employed four
nurses and a housekeeper. The cost of a week’s hospitalization
was between $10 and $15. High Point had 6,500 citizens.
Dr. Guy Duncan
(left) and
Dr John Burrus 1912.
Note the Changes made to
the hospital
The 1910's The Junior Order weathered financially
tough times until Dr. John Tilman Burrus and Dr. Guy Duncan
purchased the hospital for $2,500 in 1912 and took over operation
of the fledgling facility. At that time the name was changed
to High Point Hospital.
The School of Nursing
1908
Hospital's
School of Nursing Cap
The School of Nursing, which was started
around 1908, was bound by no state regulations in its early
years. The first few nurses came from a nursing program in
Sanford and were immediately put to work, for the health care
industry had nursing shortages even at the beginning of the
20th century. Nursing education was informal, but the experience
produced nurses who combined hard work with compassion and
common sense. The first class graduated in 1912.
