Located at 303 N. Church St. in Murfreesboro, the Rutherford Health Department is a two-and-a-half story Flemish bond brick building, covered by asphalt shingle gable roofs.
The building has a central block with wings plan. This symmetrical Colonial Revival-styled building, capped by a hexagonal wooden cupola, is a locally significant example of the Colonial Revival style of architecture, designed by the noted New York City firm of James Gamble Rogers and built in 1931.
The Rutherford Health Department is historically significant for its development of health care and public medicine in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County. Until the day it opened to the public, the county had no permanent public health facility.
The Rutherford Health Department soon assumed a statewide role in the promotion of public health programs and the training of health care professionals. The property gains further significance as a locally significant example of the public health care improvement projects of the Commonwealth Fund of New York, a charity initially established by a bequest of Mrs. Stephen Harkness in 1918 and administered through this philanthropy foundation. The Commonwealth Fund actively sought out rural communities who needed public health facilities.
The Rutherford Health Department is also a locally significant example of Colonial Revival architecture and of the work of the firm of Henry C. Pelton and James Gamble Rogers, a significant New York City architectural firm of the 1920s and 1930s, which specialized in Colonial and Classical Revival architecture. The firm developed standardized designs for many Commonwealth Fund health projects and invariably chose a Colonial or Classical Revival theme.
Indeed, the Rockefeller Family Archives in Tarrytown, NY, which houses the Commonwealth Fund Papers, also features a Colonial Revival design by James Gamble Rogers. And, of course, the Rockefeller family is famous for its promotion of the 1930s Colonial Revival through its funding and activism for the restoration of Williamsburg, Va. The Rutherford Health Department was designed and constructed (1930-31) at the height of this popularity for colonial architecture found in the many public projects of the Rockefeller family.
From 1830 to the turn of the century, the history of health care and medicine in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County focused on attempts to upgrade the medical profession and service as well as attempts to suppress "quackery" from unqualified practitioners. In 1831 Fredric Becton wrote an essay on "The Medical Topography of Rutherford County," which discussed the importance of climate and locality on the incidence and course of diseases. Dr. John W. Richardson, in 1833, urged legislators to approve a bill ending medical practice by non-professionals. His attempt failed. Not until 1889 would the state legislature establish the State Board of Medical Examiners, of which Dr. James B. Murfree of Murfreesboro was the first president.
The Rutherford County Medical Society received its charter from the reorganized Tennessee Medical Society (now Association) in 1902. Apart from private practices in the county, no other medical help existed except for the Red Cross, which only had limited resources and staff. Most county residents could not afford the prices of private physicians and they received little or no medical care. Things began to change for the better, however, during the Progressive Era.
In 1911, Middle Tennessee Normal School was established in Murfreesboro, and Jeannette King, a physical education teacher there, developed a program of physical exams for elementary school children. Maud Cloverdale, the public health nurse of the Red Cross, expanded this program to the county elementary schools in 1920. That same year the state legislature passed an act, which allowed communities to establish county health departments with full-time staff.
Two years later, the physical education director at the Normal College and Maud Ferguson of the local Red Cross received information about the funding activities of the Commonwealth Fund of New York. At this time, the Fund was interested in establishing and funding rural and small town demonstration unit on the value and necessity of public health programs. Simeon B. Christy, the director of the Red Cross in Murfreesboro, submitted a detailed report to the Commonwealth Fund, describing prior community efforts in public health and requesting that Rutherford County be named one of the demonstration units for the South.
Despite the commendable efforts of Christy, Cloverdale, and others, the state of public health service in Rutherford County remained poor. In 1923, for example, the county had only part-time health officers for both Murfreesboro and the rural communities with a full-time nurse to assist both officers. The public health budget was a mere $3,519.
In 1924, after much investigation, Rutherford County was chosen to receive the demonstration unit, one of four in the nation. The Rutherford unit was headed by Dr. Harry S. Mustard, an employee of the Commonwealth Fund. This five-year program to development a public health system was initially housed in a two-story building on North Spring Street, which featured a clinic, a laboratory, and offices.
"As originally conceived," according to the Commonwealth Fund's own history of its Rutherford County efforts, "the demonstration program begun in 1924 was primarily concerned with the health of children." The Fund employed a pediatrician, Dr. Waring, who traveled around the county conducting "Well Baby Clinics" while examining children and providing medical care. But quickly Dr. Mustard and the Fund realized that the whole community needed to be involved. Immunization was begun for small pox, diphtheria, and typhoid fever. The county passed regulations setting basic standards of purity for milk being delivered in the community. The program aggressively addressed the city's and county's problem with general sanitation (the city water supply was especially poor). As the Commonwealth Fund's history concludes,
"while using the citizens' interest in child health as the motivating force, those responsible for local work never lost sight of the fact that environmental sanitation (including a clean and safe milk supply), the control of communicable diseases of childhood, and the education of the public in all matters relating to the art of healthy living were the essential functions of a well-conducted community health service."
The 1927 construction of Rutherford Hospital, a project of the Rural Hospital Division of the Commonwealth Fund, also assisted the efforts of the demonstration unit. It provided a laboratory and diagnostic and advisory services for public health officials.
The demonstration program ended in January 1929 and Dr. Mustard submitted a full report lauding its success to the Commonwealth Fund. According to local medical historian Dr. Robert Ransom, "striking results were evident, [as] the death rate among mothers and infants was considerably lowered." Moreover, "the city and county were prompted to appropriate funds for the maintenance of a permanent Rutherford County Health Department."
With the assistance of the Commonwealth Fund, the county's health care program had evolved into more than a sound local project; it was now assuming a position of statewide importance. In 1929, the nursing school at Vanderbilt University established a working relationship with the Health Department providing student nurses for fieldwork and clinic activities.
Students from its medical school also came to Murfreesboro for public health training. The next year, the state department of health began to use Rutherford County personnel as trainers in its Field Technical Unit helping other counties create viable public health programs. In 1930 a report from the American Public Health Association showed that the Rutherford County Health Department received the highest score of any rural county in the nation.
Due to the demonstration program's considerable success, the Commonwealth Fund's Division of Rural Hospitals appropriated $75,000 for a modern public health facility to be built in Murfreesboro. The Fund further provided all of the funding to outfit the building with equipment and furniture. The building was to be an outright gift to the people of Rutherford County, represented by a local Board of Directors who would administer and supervise the new health department's activities.
At its dedication ceremonies on Oct. 5, 1931, Barry C. Smith, general director of the Commonwealth Fund, praised the city and county for the leaps it had made in public health awareness and service since 1924. He predicted that the new Rutherford Health Department Building would become a training center for public health professionals throughout Tennessee and the South in general. Indeed by 1935, the Health Department would train well over 400 health officers, nurses, and medical students.
Clearly the Rutherford Health Department possessed a leadership role in the statewide public health movement. In 1935 the state legislature approved a re-organization of the county health system. The new law created county boards of health and allowed for the establishment of a county physician in addition to the public health officer. Dr. S. B. Smith of Murfreesboro became the first county physician.
In a report on the Rutherford public health program published later that year, Dr. E. L. Bishop, the state commissioner of Public Health, observed: "it is well nigh impossible to appraise the influence of Rutherford County's public health history upon health developments in the state of Tennessee. Really substantial advance in the public health organization of Tennessee began in 1925" when the demonstration unit began its work in Murfreesboro. Smith explained further that the Rutherford Health Department has
"demonstrated that Tennessee counties can and will pay for efficient public health protection organized upon a reasonably adequate scale and . . . has stimulated to better efforts not only other communities but also the individuals responsible for public health administration. It has provided facilities [in the second floor auditorium] for training personnel for a large number of public health organizations in other sections of Tennessee. In its service new principles in the application of knowledge to the conservation of vital resources have been evolved. From its staff, public health workers advanced to positions of broader responsibility in the state organization so that these principles proved practical in one area might be given statewide application.
Few, if any, rural health departments can equal this fourfold contribution to general progress. Not one is giving better service to the people and in no rural community is there greater public appreciation of public health service.
The Rutherford Health is the finest example of the Colonial Revival style in a Murfreesboro public building. The Health Department's Colonial Revival style embodies many of the properties of early American Georgian architecture: the central block plan with wings, the symmetry of the east and west facades, the bell-shaped roof of the cupola along with the cupola itself, and the choice of Flemish bond brickwork. The fanlights above the entranceways are also typical of Late Georgian buildings.
Throughout the building, the workmanship is high quality. Ralph Stephens of Murfreesboro served as the architects' on-site superintendent; Bell Bros. and Company of Nashville was the general contractor. W. W. Rion & Son of Murfreesboro carried out the property's original landscaping, which featured, of course, a row of boxwoods from the front door to the sidewalk.
The Health Department is only Murfreesboro design that can be attributed to the firm of James Gamble Rogers (1867-1947). Rogers began his architectural training in the independent Paris atelier of Paul Blondel. Blondel's students worked in the classical tradition and included such noted American architects as Ernest Flagg (the Lincoln Memorial) and Donn Barber (the Southern Railway Terminal in Chattanooga). Under Blondel's direction, Rogers gained a love for the classical tradition, and met his most important partner, Herbert D. Hale.
During his early career, Rogers became a favorite for Harkness family philanthropic enterprises after his firm of Hale and Rogers had designed the Italian Renaissance town villa of Edward Harkness in New York City in 1905. The family later chose Rogers as the architect for the Collegiate Gothic Harkness Commons (1917-21) at Yale University.
The best Rogers designs, associated either with the firm of Hale and Rogers or Pelton and Rogers, stand in New York City such as the Yale Club and the Butler Library at Columbia University. But Rogers also made his mark on Tennessee architecture, especially in Memphis where Rogers and various partners are credited with three important early 20th century buildings: the Shelby County Courthouse (Hale and Rogers, 1906-9), the old First National Bank Building (Rogers and Woods, 1909), and the former Brooks Memorial Art Galley (Rogers alone, 1916).
After Mrs. Stephen Harkness endowed the Commonwealth Fund in 1918, the new philanthropic agency made its headquarters in the Rogers-designed Harkness family home. The Fund chose the firm of Pelton and Rogers to design the great majority of the clinics and hospitals funded by its Division of Rural Hospitals. Rogers' Colonial Revival design for the Rutherford Health Department is an excellent example of the style at the height of its popularity in the early 1930s.
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