
Atlanta Sanitarium
Photo courtesy of Ellen G. White Estate. Shared by Michael W. Campbell.
Atlanta Sanitarium (fl. 1903–1914)
By Michael W. Campbell
Michael W. Campbell, Ph.D., is North American Division Archives, Statistics, and Research director. Previously, he was professor of church history and systematic theology at Southwestern Adventist University. An ordained minister, he pastored in Colorado and Kansas. He is assistant editor of The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia (Review and Herald, 2013) and currently is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism. He also taught at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies (2013-18) and recently wrote the Pocket Dictionary for Understanding Adventism (Pacific Press, 2020).
First Published: October 14, 2024
Atlanta Sanitarium was an Adventist health institution established in 1903 in Atlanta, Georgia.
History of the Facility
After his conversion, Charles F. Curtis1 (1859-1932) studied at Battle Creek College. After working as a colporteur, he returned to Battle Creek to study medicine and then went as a pioneer missionary in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1887. About 1889, he helped Sands H. Lane2 (1844-1906) and Charles F. Curtis (1859-1932) purchase property for use as a branch office of the Review and Herald. In 1897 he went to the Battle Creek Sanitarium to train and worked there for two years. He returned in 1900 to Georgia where he purchased seven acres of land at the corner of Memorial Drive, Carter Avenue, and Alston Drive. When the church’s publishing work relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, church leaders tried to, but were unable, to sell the property. Ellen White advised that the property be kept and used for medical missionary work.3 In 1903 Dr. Curtis was issued a building permit to repair the frame house on the property to convert it into a health facility.4
The institution appeared in the Year Book for the first time in 1905 with Charles F. Curtis as the medical superintendent, and R. M. Kilgore as the president of the Board.5 The sanitarium was located at 243 South Boulevard near Grant’s Park, a zoological and botanical garden.6 Despite meager facilities, the two member staff were able to administer 1,500 treatments in 1906.7 The next year Curtis reported a staff of three with a capacity in the building for eight patients. Despite such limitations, he reported that the institution had given 1,007 treatments.8
In 1907 the sanitarium received an appropriation of $3,000.9 This allowed them to install a new heating plant.10 Curtis described the facility at that time:
The Atlanta Sanitarium is a three-story structure of twenty rooms, including bath and treatment room, and a basement. Only eight of the rooms are in condition to be occupied by patients. The third story is wholly unfinished, and some rooms in the first and second stories are only lathed. The elevator shaft is open from the basement to the third story. No dining-room or kitchen has been built, an unfinished room in the basement being used for that purpose.11
Church leaders in 1909 allocated some funds to establish a second medical mission for African Americans in Atlanta.12
After some improvements in 1910 the physical building was described as much more attractive and “a credit to our work.” The manager, R. T. Dowsett, glowed about the upgrade which included repainting the establishment, which was paid for solely out of sanitarium income. They had also reduced the debt on the institution. The then current superintendent, Dr. J. H. Neall was described as someone with “long experience” in medical practice.13 Advertisements noted the affiliation of this sanitarium with a “sisterhood of eight well equipped health institutions scattered throughout the world.” It further added that they utilized the “famous Battle Creek Sanitarium system of treatments.”14
The Atlanta Sanitarium was listed for the last time in the Seventh-day Adventist Year Book in 1914, on the eve of World War I and during a time when many other Adventist sanitariums also closed. By late 1915 the sanitarium had ceased operations at 243 South Boulevard and the property became a boarding house.15 One person recalled how “one plan after another had been developed, but nothing became reality.”16 A self-supporting medical ministry continued on a limited basis near church-owned facilities at Memorial Drive and across the city through the early twentieth century. In succeeding decades, it changed and moved locations several more times. The sanitarium was listed in statistical reports as a “privately owned” institution until 1953. After the death of Dr. Julius F. Schneider (1958), it ceased operations.17
Manager/Superintendent
Dr. Charles F. Curtis, M.D. (1903-1908), George A. Williams (1908-1909), J. H. Neall, M.D. (1909-1911), L. L. Andrews, M.D. (1912-1914).
Sources
“Adventists in Atlanta.” Southern Tidings, June 1983.
“Atlanta Sanitarium: Hope of the Afflicted.” Atlanta Semi-Weekly Journal, May 27, 1910.
Curtis, Charles F. “The Atlanta Sanitarium.” ARH, April 18, 1907.
Hansen, L. A. “The Atlanta (Ga.) Sanitarium.” ARH, January 12, 1911.
Welch, Donald W. “Health-care Corporations Strengthen Church’s Work.” ARH, January 22, 1981.
Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination: The Official Directories. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1905.
Notes
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Obit. ARH, August 18, 1932, 22.↩
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See Brian E. Strayer, “Lane, Sands Harvey,” in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventism, January 29, 2020, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=G9NL.↩
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Charles F. Curtis, “The Atlanta Sanitarium,” ARH, April 18, 1907, 21.↩
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See under “Building Permits,” The Atlanta Journal, December 4, 1903, 9.↩
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Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination: The Official Directories (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1905), 106.↩
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“The Atlanta Sanitarium,” ARH, January 17, 1907, 7.↩
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Ibid.↩
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Year Book of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination (Washington, D.C.: Review & Herald, 1907),134.↩
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F. M. Burg, “Western Washington: The $150,000 Fund: Shall We Do Our Part Now?” North Pacific Union Gleaner, October 23, 1907, 4.↩
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See under “Building Permits,” The Atlanta Journal, August 16, 1907, 12.↩
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“The Atlanta Sanitarium,” ARH, January 17, 1907, 7.↩
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General Conference Bulletin, May 23, 1909, 111.↩
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L. A. Hansen, “The Atlanta (Ga.) Sanitarium,” ARH, January 12, 1911, 17.↩
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“Atlanta Sanitarium: Hope of the Afflicted,” Atlanta Semi-Weekly Journal, May 27, 1910, 3.↩
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See “Wanted-Boarders,” The Atlanta Journal, October 26, 1916, 17.↩
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Donald W. Welch, “Health-care Corporations Strengthen Church’s Work,” ARH, January 22, 1981, 16.↩
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See “Adventists in Atlanta,” Southern Tidings, June 1983, 4.↩