Glades General Hospital

History of Glades General Hospital

Glades General Hospital is a former hospital located in the city of Belle Glade, Florida, which cared for the residents and agricultural workers living in this rural part of the state. The main building was constructed in 1965, with an addition to the operating room suite that was built in 1984. Adjacent to the main hospital building is the Memorial Wing, built in 1942 and which was part of the original hospital. After the construction of the main building, the wing housed the hospital’s administration, doctors’ offices, and storage facilities. A second addition to the hospital was built in 2000, which housed obstetrics.

The Farm Security Association

The old hospital opened in 1942 as the Belle Glade Migratory Hospital, located on South Main Street near the Okeechobee Migratory Labor Camp. The camp was built in 1939 by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to house black farm workers from the Caribbean. The FSA was a New Deal government agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration, which relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government, such as the labor camps in Belle Glade. The Osceola Migratory Labor Camp, which housed white farm workers, was located on the north side of town.

The FSA was not without its critics. Many opposed the FSA, viewing it as an attempt to impose collectivized farming by organizing farmers to work collectively on large, government-owned lands and as an experiment in socialism. Although it dissolved in 1946, the FSA’s lasting legacy lies in its small but highly influential photography program, which documented the challenges of rural poverty during the Great Depression. Many famous photographs, such as “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange, were the byproducts of this program.

The Belle Glade Migratory Hospital

The Belle Glade Migratory Hospital was also constructed at $150,000 and was owned and operated by the FSA. At the time, Belle Glade was highly segregated, with the town sectioned off by race, and the hospital was no different, as was the law at the time. White and Black were served in separate wings, although identical, with a total bed space for 41 adults, four children, and 16 bassinets.

The hospital was one of the most well-equipped and modern facilities of its kind in the South. The operating room had built-in sterilizers and air conditioning with the latest model of multi-beam lighting. The X-ray room had a refrigerated developing tank, and the laboratory featured an electric refrigerator, a hot water bath, an incubator, and a clinical centrifuge among its equipment. The nursery featured bottle sterilizers and temperature-regulated baby baths with automatic water sprays.

The personnel consisted of the superintendent, a chief surgeon, an assistant surgeon, an X-ray technician, two head nurses (one white and one Black), and five general duty nurses (two of whom were Black). Many of the personnel lived on the property in furnished, modern homes for both white and black nurses, and a furnished apartment connected to the surgical wing for the chief surgeon.

Establishment of Glades General Hospital

After the end of World War II and the dissolution of the FSA, the U.S. Government deeded the land and hospital to the city of Belle Glade for $100 in 1949. In the years that followed, the region saw exponential growth, and the health care system failed to keep up. By the 1960s, the Belle Glade Hospital was running at full capacity, with many residents traveling to West Palm Beach or Miami for medical care. At this time, both Belle Glade Hospital and nearby Everglades Memorial Hospital in Pahokee had lost accreditation due to their outdated equipment and facilities.

Talks began on expanding the hospitals in the region, although there was much contention. Officials in Belle Glade recommended remodelling the old structure to include space for 40 beds to serve both Belle Glade and Pahokee, while critics contended that an all-new centralized hospital would better serve the communities. The centralized hospital was to be located three miles outside both cities and would be constructed using funds obtained by the Hill–Burton Act, which provided federal grants to states for the construction of new community hospitals that operated on a non-profit basis. The funds could only be used on new construction, so a remodel was out of the question.

In the end, it was decided that the cities would each get their own hospitals and both would be new construction. Palm Beach County was awarded $900,000 and used $635,000 of it to build the new Glades General Hospital.

The hospital was designed by local architect Chester A. Cone, who was responsible for several commercial buildings in the region. He did work for the Miami-based theater chain Gold & Dobrow, including the Hugo Theater (1947), Prince Theater (1940), and Lake Drive-in Theater (1952). Cone also designed several buildings for Palm Beach County, mainly in Pahokee and Belle Glade, including the present Belle Glade City Hall (1967). The extent of his work, though, is unknown, as many of his designs, mainly his commercial work, are no longer extant.

Glades General Hospital opened in June 1965, just weeks before the new Everglades Memorial Hospital debuted in Pahokee. The project included remodeling the former Migratory Labor Hospital building. Later that same year, the Memorial Wing was added to the north side of the property, providing 40 additional beds. Connected to the main building by a covered walkway, the new wing also housed administrative offices, doctors’ offices, and expanded storage areas.

Consolidation and Closure

In 1998, Everglades Memorial Hospital in Pahokee closed its doors, with all medical services transferred to Glades General Hospital. The former facility was soon abandoned. Glades General would later meet a similar end. In 2004, the Palm Beach County Health Care District took over ownership and operations of Glades General. Following damage sustained during Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and recognizing the aging condition of the building, the District Board voted in 2006 to construct a new regional hospital. Glades General continued to operate until October 2009, when it was officially replaced by Lakeside Medical Center, a $73-million, 70-bed public hospital built less than five miles away.

In 2010, the Palm Beach County Health Care District sold the former hospital to the Miami-based development firm Castello Brothers for $250,000. The company initially planned to convert the property into migrant worker housing and had previously completed another local project known as Belle Glade Gardens. However, the proposed housing development never came to fruition.

Five years later, in 2015, the property was sold again, this time for $1.8 million, to Passages Malibu, a California-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation company. Passages announced plans to invest between $3 million and $10 million in renovations to transform the facility into a treatment center. However, the building remains vacant. The site continues to be monitored by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which has made several arrests there in recent years.

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