IT TOOK 30 YEARS TO MAKE IT A REALITY.
In 1900, Thomas Claire (T.C.) Maguire, M.D. opened a 10-bed hospital on the second floor of Herring’s Drug Store in Plant City. Another 13-bed hospital operated over White’s Central Pharmacy. These locations served as Plant City’s only medical facilities for 50 years.
In the 1925 census, Florida’s population stood at 1,263,549 people, 651,347 cattle, and 74,025 horses. In terms of people only, between 1920 and 1925 the population of Hillsborough County increased from 88,257 to 133,384. According to the census, 9,300 people lived in voting districts designated as Plant City.
In light of the size of Plant City, these 23 hospital beds were proving to be inadequate. So, in the late 1920s people in Plant City began advocating for a better facility. The discussion continued through the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s with no tangible progress.
Eventually, M.E. Moody, using his personal funds, set up a bank account for a hospital and purchased five acres on Alexander Street in 1944. Mrs. R.L. (Rowena) Mays donated another five acres in 1945 to complete the acreage for the hospital site.
The Florida Baptist Convention gave $10,000 to the hospital effort. Subsequently, a change in rules barred the Convention from providing any further support. However, the First Baptist Church in Plant City and other congregations from all over Florida gave donations to build a Baptist hospital. Hillsborough County, Plant City, businesses, and civic clubs joined in and by 1950, $30,000 had been raised.
The envisioned four-story facility would contain 109 beds and the equipment to be a fully functioning hospital. In January, 1948, a construction contract was awarded to Paul Smith Construction Company of Tampa. Work began in February 1948, but stopped in December 1948 due to lack of funds. Construction made no progress until $440,000 in federal aid funds were allocated in 1949 to build the hospital.
After the hiatus, construction began again in in May 1952. Florida Governor Fuller Warren joined locals in laying the cornerstone. Listed on the cornerstone of the hospital were its first Board of Directors: Chairman Dr. T. C. Maguire; Dr. Edgar Austin; A.R. Boring; J.L. Cone; H.C. Durrett; L.H. Duyck; Grover H. Carter; C.R. “Jack” Hooker; L.T. Langford; Willard McGinnes; Henry S. Moody; R. G. Pate; Don Walden, and Dewey Wilbanks. These people, among others, gave blood, sweat, toil, and tears to make real the vision of the South Florida Baptist Hospital in Plant City.
The hospital opened on December 29, 1953, but without any remaining money for equipment and supplies. Paul Smith, the owner of the construction company and another man, who was not a resident of Plant City, signed personal notes to fund the purchase of these items.
When South Florida Baptist Hospital opened, it rendered the hospital over White’s Pharmacy and Maguire’s hospital obsolete. Maguire’s hospital closed in 1954. Sadly, Dr. Maguire, who was born in 1881, died January 31, 1954 having had only a few weeks to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his labor to build South Florida Baptist Hospital.
In 1969, construction added the three-story south wing of 96 patient beds, a new lobby, office space and an employee cafeteria.
In the 1980s and 1990s a $10 million expansion included a new east wing, and major renovations. The South Florida Baptist Hospital building has stood structurally unchanged since then.
