Date: 1920
1110 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh
Easement Acquired 12/20/2007
Individually Listed
National Register of Historic Places
Mary Elizabeth Hospital, located at the intersection of Wake Forest Road and Glascock Street in Raleigh, was constructed in 1920. It is an excellent example of a small community hospital built in the Colonial Revival style with Craftsman Features. Designed, constructed, owned, and operated privately by a group of Raleigh doctors, including Drs. Harold Glascock, Ivan Proctor, and P.G. Fox, it holds significance as Raleigh’s only surviving privately-owned hospital building from the early twentieth century. At the time of Mary Elizabeth Hospital’s construction, most general hospitals in North Carolina were privately owned and operated by local physicians because local governments were unable to fund the construction and operation of modern medical facilities. These small hospitals served their communities until they were no longer practical and could not compete with larger, newer hospitals of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mary Elizabeth Hospital’s doctors were quite progressive, and many of the area’s medical firsts happened in this building, including the first blood transfusion given in North Carolina, as well as the first dose of penicillin administered in Wake County.