Images in Mississippi Medicine

OKTIBBEHA HOSPITAL, STARKVILLE, MISSISSIPPI, 1927-1950— This first image, the front of a postcard postmarked 1941, depicts Oktibbeha Hospital in Starkville, Mississippi. The first public hospital in Oktibbeha County, it opened its doors on May 2, 1927.^[1] Founded and operated by Dr. Felix Benjamen (a variant spelling of Benjamin) Long (1882-1958), Oktibbeha Hospital was the only general public hospital within a 25-mile radius of Starkville.

Oktibbeha Hospital in Starkville 1927-1950

An earlier local hospital was the James Z. George Infirmary, located on the grounds of The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi (Mississippi A&M). This architecturally significant structure still stands on the Mississippi State University campus as George Hall. It was constructed in 1902 as a campus hospital for college students and faculty named in honor of the famous Mississippi senator, who also served on the board of the college. See second image, “Hospital, Agricultural College, Miss.”^[2]

James Z.George Infirmary 1902-1965

Prior to Oktibbeha Hospital’s establishment, local residents sought care in Columbus, Tupelo, or even further destinations. Oktibbeha Hospital was housed within a handsome two-story building on Lampkin Street in Starkville. The hospital’s motto was “A community’s first duty is to provide for its sick and afflicted,” and the hospital asserted that “never has anyone been turned away because they could not pay.”^[3]

The original impetus for the hospital was launched by the Lions Club in 1926, which proceeded to select a site and sell stock. A charter for the Oktibbeha Hospital company was created, domiciled at Starkville with a score of prominent businessmen as incorporators, and capitalized at $40,000.^[4] That hospital failed to materialize, but then Dr. Long, who had been practicing medicine in Oktibbeha County since 1914, decided to enlarge and remodel the luxurious Saunders property on Lampkin Street to create a hospital, which would also serve as his home. Its six-acre site, located upon a hill back from the street on beautiful grounds adorned with trees, shrubs, and flowers, would add to the healing properties of the hospital. The hospital had eight rooms upstairs and seven downstairs, including patient rooms, an operating room, an x-ray room, and a laboratory.

Five months after it opened, Oktibbeha Hospital was declared a grand success. A nearby newspaper noted: “There have been more than 133 patients treated at this hospital since it was opened and only three patients have died which is indeed a splendid record. Patients have gone there, Dr. Long tells us, from Clay, Webster, Winston, Attala, Montgomery, Noxubee, Choctaw, and Oktibbeha, the latter county leading, of course. The hospital is located on a beautiful lot across from the Methodist Church and easily accessible from all parts of the town. All of the rooms are furnished in hospital manner and the operating equipment and operating rooms are second to none. The building is equipped with a heating system and the X-Ray outfit is the latest to be had. All of the physicians of Starkville are cooperating with Dr. Long in this fine work to alleviate pain and restore humanity back to perfect health. Dr. Long has spent something over $25,000.00 in equipping this hospital and is deeply interested in his work.”^[5]

Three years after it opened, the hospital had 22 beds, had admitted over 3,000 patients, and belonged to both the Mississippi and American Hospital Associations. See Oktibbeha Hospital ad from 1934.^[6] Dr. Long opened the hospital to all physicians in the area and maintained an excellent staff of registered and practical nurses who worked 12-hour shifts and were on call 24 hours a day. Mrs. Maggie Mayfield Long, widow of the founder, recalled in later years the Depression period when she was a hospital nurse as the hospital struggled to remain open. “As many as five months would go buy when the nurses worked without pay, receiving only room and board,” she remembered. Early nurses included Mary Roane Thornton, RN, who was superintendent of nurses; Mrs. Frances Evans Witherspoon, who later became the health coordinator of Prairie Opportunity Head Start Centers; Louise Childs; Inez Chambers; Mabel Mayfield; Maggie Mayfield (who became Mrs. Long); Lila Cherry; Christine Anderson; Mildred Hall; Anita George; and Hassie Hagemeyer.ⁱⁱⁱ

Oktibbeha Hospital Ad 1934

One of nine children, Dr. Long was born on October 17, 1882, to Ben and Pate Long, who lived in the Reform community in Choctaw County, Mississippi. Although his family migrated to Texas, he returned home to Choctaw County for his education. The grandson of physician Dr. Kinch Watson, Long graduated from Ackerman High School in 1904 and after teaching school and “making a crop” in Reform for a period to raise funds for his medical education, he entered the University of Tennessee School of Medicine in Memphis in 1909. His father’s death resulted in a disruption of his medical training, and when he returned to Memphis, he earned his room and board by doing janitorial work. He obtained a “temporary license” to practice medicine from the Board of Health in 1911, beginning his medical practice in the Self Creek community. The Starkville News Self Creek correspondent wrote at the time, “Dr. Felix Long has located in our town, and we give him a hearty welcome as we were entirely without a physician.”^[7] (A medical license in Mississippi was thus awarded in a “temporary” status without a physician having obtained his degree.) In 1913, he married Ethel Lee Clardy and returned to medical college, graduating with an MD in 1914. He served his internship at the General Hospital in Memphis before returning to the Self Creek community in Oktibbeha County. During World War I, he entered the medical service and was stationed at Starkville and Mississippi A&M. He eventually moved to Starkville with his family, which grew to three daughters and three sons. He served as county health officer there from 1917 to 1923. After his term of service ended, he remained in Starkville and would eventually establish Oktibbeha Hospital.

Dr. Long would be honored in 1931 as the first recipient of The Starkville News’ Loving Cup which was given in recognition of the citizen who rendered “the most outstanding service to the community during 1930.”^[8] In 1934, following a divorce from his first wife the previous year, Dr. Long married a longtime nurse, Maggie Belle Mayfield. On December 27, 1936, Dr. Long was seriously injured when the hospital elevator he was in, along with an emergency patient and several occupants, fell: “The elevator was at the top of the shaft and attendants were preparing to roll the patient to the operating room when the car crashed to the ground floor. Other than Dr. Long, no one was hurt.”^[9]

Dr. Long recovered from the elevator accident and continued to operate the hospital until 1948. The property was then sold to the county, which constructed a new hospital named in memory of Dr. Long’s son, Felix, Jr., who was also a physician and who lost his life in the crash of a medical plane off Guadalcanal’s coast in 1943 shortly before his 27^th birthday. The new 40-bed Felix Long Memorial Hospital, owned and operated by Oktibbeha County and built at a cost of $413,190, was dedicated in December 1950, with eight-year-old Felix Long, III, son of Felix, Jr., snipping the ribbon at the event.^[10] Dr. Long continued his active medical practice at the new hospital until his death in 1958. (He is buried at Odd Fellows Cemetery in Starkville.)^[11] In 1969, construction began on a new Hill-Burton $1.8 million 75-bed hospital named Oktibbeha County Hospital, which opened in 1974 on Hospital Road in Starkville. It is now OCH Regional Medical Center.^[12]

If you have an old or even somewhat recent photograph which would be of interest to Mississippi physicians, please send it to me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com or by snail mail to the Journal. — Lucius M. “Luke” Lampton, MD; JMSMA Editor