The idea of building a hospital in Decatur was not a new one. A bustling river town, Decatur was the most important Tennessee River depot between Chattanooga and the Shoals. In response to the growing population, residents had formed a committee to study the need for such a facility as early as 1872.

Because of their proximity to water, port cities were the hardest hit by the mosquito-spread yellow fever epidemics of the late 19th century. But legend has it that the 1888 fever came to Decatur by train.

Since yellow fever paranoia abounded during that time, porters did not allow sick people off a train, for fear that person might bring the disease into town. Perhaps that is why a young woman reportedly saw a man being helped out of a window on the opposite side of the train in September of 1888. Some say the man took ill on the trip and decided to stop at the home of a Decatur acquaintance, A.D. Spencer, to recuperate before finishing his journey. After the man recovered from his illness and was on his way home, Mr. Spencer took the same illness, but he was not so lucky. Spencer was yellow fever's first victim in Decatur that year.

Word spread that yellow fever was in town, and much of the population responded by leaving. Churches stopped meeting, businesses closed and trains drove through without stopping for the two-month period that Decatur was quarantined.

Supplies and money arrived from dozens of individuals, churches and municipalities around the world, including the U.S. Consul in Paris, the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and an eight-year-old girl from Clarksville, Tennessee.

At the time, no one knew the cause of mosquito-borne yellow fever, and treatments for the condition included bloodletting and applying hot bricks to patients' extremities, causing blisters that doctors believed drew out the poison. Medications consisted mostly of herbed teas.

But despite a lack of knowledge for the cause and treatment of the fever, and despite the exodus of most of their neighbors to the countryside, several dedicated men and women stayed to care for their stricken fellow residents.

When the crisis was over, 37 people had died, including five physicians (see accompanying story). The women, who later named themselves the Ladies Benevolent Society, sold the surplus supplies and raised $30 to initiate a hospital fund. They began holding fundraisers and, during one year, sponsored a public campaign that generated $10,000.

Seventeen years after the first monies were donated, on August 18, 1915, two penciled entries in a navy blue, leather-bound ledger would record the first two admissions to the Ladies Benevolent Society Hospital. Helene, Pauline and B.B. Bryan, a Flint family suffering from typhoid fever, made history that day, as the two-story hospital opened with 28 beds and little else.

Though there were few medical amenities at the time -- no x-ray machines, pathology laboratories or monitoring equipment -- the hospital was a dream realized for the members of the Benevolent Society, who had paid $750 to buy the four-acre plot from the Decatur Land Company. (The land would have sold for $1,000, but the company donated $250 to the cause.) The columned brick building on Somerville Road would serve as Decatur's healthcare center for many years to come.