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Wlaf1450By Charlie Hutson
LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- It was 71 years ago today on May 1, 1954, when the ground breaking ceremony took place on the hill where the new hospital would be built. Back then, the new hospital was going to be built in east Lafollette, just inside the Lafollette city limits.
On that Saturday a small crowd along with some of Lafollette’s local doctors and politician gathered for the ground breaking ceremony.
The Hospital opened two years later on Sunday, July 15, 1956, and on the following day, Monday morning, the hospital started admitting patients.
Back then Lafollette had two hospitals, Lafollette Hospital on South Tennessee Ave. That building still stands across from City Hall. The other was Doctor’s Hospital at the corner of West Central Ave. and North 11th Street where the Riggs Drug Store is now located. These hospitals were privatately owned by local doctors.
When the city started to talk about a city owned hospital to keep down confusion, they referred to it as the Lafollette Municipal Hospital. Before the hospital opened, they decided to rename the hospital to something more pleasing to the community since it would serve the surrounding communities. Yea, you guessed it. The name was changed to Lafollette Community Hospital. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-05/01/2025-6AM)
This photo started my day as I sat down to morning coffee, tapped my cell to open WLAF news and found my great-uncle Harrison Parrott looking back at me. That ling tall man was a fixture in my youth. My grandmother, Cora Parrott Robbins, was his sister. Mover and shaker, that man was. Used to tell stories to me about growing up in Bethlehem.
W.H. Parrott, Sr. was my wife’s (Brenda Parrott Nichols) grandfather…