Responding to an Epidemic
During the summer of 1948, polio began rapidly spreading through the Piedmont of North Carolina. The virus infected more people per capita in Guilford County than anywhere else in the country, and area hospitals struggled to provide proper care for the multiplying patients. Pools and playgrounds closed because of the magnitude of the epidemic.
As the epidemic intensified, 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 soon overwhelmed these buildings with patients, and the community began fundraising for a new hospital.
Patients initially stayed in a recreational building at the World War II Overseas Replacement Depot, 1947.
©Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection
“[The hospital] brought in people whose lives were in crisis at the time and gave them reassurance and therapy at a critical time when they needed it so desperately. That kind of thing needs to be commemorated... for a county, for a community, for a city.” - Shirley Hayworth, a High Point resident, who contracted polio while at Guilford College.
Fundraising Efforts
Shriners donating a check to the polio fund, 1948.
©Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection
In High Point, the Junior Chamber of Commerce collecteddimes for a “Mile of Dimes,” raising tens of thousands of dollars.
LIFE, August 30, 1948, Courtesy of Victoria and Roy Shipman
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. This 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.
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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.
The hospital opened on October 11, 1948, only ninety-five days after fundraising and construction began.
Greensboro Daily News, August 22, 1948, Courtesy of Victoria and Roy Shipman