Cannon Street Hospital / McClennan Banks Memorial Hospital

Cannon Street Hospital

Cannon Street Hospital, established here in 1897, served the African-American community of Charleston until 1959. Officially the Hospital and Training School for Nurses, it occupied a three-story brick building constructed ca. 1800. Dr. Alonzo C. McClennan (1855-1912), then one of only six black physicians in Charleston, was one of its founders and also edited The Hospital Herald 1898-1900.

McClennan Banks Memorial Hospital

By 1956 Dr. Thomas C. McFall, director of the Cannon Street Hospital, led a campaign to build a new hospital. McClennan-Banks Memorial Hospital, which opened on Courtenay Street in 1959, was named for Dr. McClennan and Anna DeCosta Banks (1869-1930), first head nurse of the Cannon Street Hospital. The old hospital here was torn down in 1961; the new hospital closed at the end of 1976 and was torn down in 2004.

Marker is on Cannon Street, on the right when traveling south.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources:

HMDB