Waverly Hills Sanatorium

In an old photograph, patients lie on a porch at Waverly Hills.

The photograph is dated October 4, 1926. The new sanatorium would officially open later that month. Its open-air spaces were part of the institution's purpose: this was a hospital built around the belief that fresh air, rest, and separation from the surrounding community could help people with tuberculosis.

Before the familiar building, there had been a smaller one. A two-storey hospital opened on the hill in 1910 with room for roughly forty to fifty patients. Jefferson County needed somewhere to treat an illness that was overwhelming its existing facilities. Waverly grew as the need grew, adding provision for advanced cases and children before the much larger building opened in 1926.