W.T. EDWARDS HOSPITAL COMPLEX

The W.T. Edwards Hospital, erected in 1952, was one of three tuberculosis (TB) hospitals built in Florida after World War II, and was funded by a state cigarette tax and federal monies. The other hospitals were in Tallahassee and Lantana. The complex included 10 buildings, six of which were particularly significant: the hospital, laboratory, employee housing, laundry and heating plant, nurses’ quarters, and state medical director’s residence. The hospital, designed by Charles Kuhn, was a significant example of the International Style popular in the post-war years. It was a long, narrow, concrete building with many windows, designed to provide interior air circulation and sunlight. The buildings were steam heated, and air conditioned except in the patients’ rooms. At the time, air conditioning was thought to be unhealthy for TB patients. The Tampa hospital was the only facility in the state to treat children with TB and to be equipped to admit patients under Florida’s compulsory isolation law, which provided that, for public safety, those who refused treatment due to religious beliefs could be confined and treated against their will. With the decline in the occurrence of TB, the hospital closed in 1974.