Morris Memorial Hospital

1936—1960

The Morris Memorial Hospital was founded by Walter T. Morris, a farmer nearby to Milton (Huffstutler, n.d.). Some say that Morris was inspired by his niece, who suffered from childhood paralysis (Huffstutler, n.d.), while some claim it was his nephew, John Morris, that experienced osteomyelitis (Casto, 2017). Nevertheless, the project was funded by the Works Progress Administration (US Dep. of Interior, 1990)—a New Deal program that sought to expand public works to boost national employment. From the National Register of Historical Places submission, the original campus had a milk house, circa 1936, and a dairy barn that burned down sometime later. The farm had 30 cows that provided dairy products to staff and patients. This bottle would have been filled with milk produced on the grounds of the hospital, rather than brought in from elsewhere.

Due to the development of an effective, safe polio vaccine in 1955, the hospital housed continually fewer patients and thus closed in 1960.