Quality Hill - Monroe's Oldest Hospital Traditional Geocache
NCreviewer: This cache appears to be missing or unmaintained. I am archiving this listing since there's been no response from nor action by the cache owner within the time frame requested in the last reviewer note.
Please note that if geocaches are archived by a reviewer or Geocaching HQ for lack of maintenance, they are not eligible for unarchival.
Quality Hill - Monroe's Oldest Hospital
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(regular)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
You seek a camo'd gallon thermos container with log and swag in an empty lot that once held a unique medical institution. Great stealth will be required as your activities may be the most interesting thing occurring around this quiet part of town.
Dr. John S. Massey (1866-1946) was the first African-American physician in Union County. He clearly was an ambitious man and for some twenty-odd years he succeeded in living his dream - to establish and run a hospital in Monroe.
Quality Hill, probably named since it sat on top of a hill on W. Windsor Street, was built in 1912. By 1922, it had ten beds and most likely saw patients well into the 1930's.
From the time it was built until 1921 when the Ellen Fitgerald Hospital was opened in Haynes Street, it was the only hospital in the area.
Dr. Massey, a native of South Carolina, trained at the Leonard Medical School at Shaw University in Raleigh. Graduating in 1896, he settled in Monroe. He married Kate Julia Massey (of Van Wyck, SC) about 1898. A son was born in June of 1900. The family home was next door to the hospital. It ia easy to imagine a man completely immersed in his career and community.
When illness forced him to stop his practice about 1942,the hospital building started its second life. The wives and families of black servicemen rented the rooms there when they came to visit thier soldiers at Camp Sutton during World War II.
After Dr. Massey's death in May of 1946, the building was sold and was no longer in the family's hands. By the 1980's, after a stint as a hotel, the building was more or less abandoned.
The Monroe-UnionCounty Historic Properties Commission applied for historical designation from the state in 1982, for both the hospital and the family home. It was accepted and designated. Renovations were underway for the hospital as the state was preparing a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Sadly, aA fire in the early morning hours of March 28, 1985 destroyed the home and gutted the county's oldest medical facility. What was left was removed and it is now the vacant lot at 802 W. Windsor Street that you see today.
(My eternal thanks to the staff of the Local History room of the Monroe Public Library for their help with this information!!)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ubyybj ybtf ner n pnpure'f sevraq