Dr. Lee Otis Miller
was one of six African American physicians who started the Blue Ridge Hospital and School of Nursing which formally opened in 1922, in Asheville, N.C.
Dr. Lee Otis Miller
Before its launch, the city had no dedicated medical facility to treat its African American residents.
A previous clinic — Torrence Hospital, which opened in 1910 — had closed by 1915, following the untimely death of its founder, Dr. William Green Torrence. The newly opened facility could house up to 30 patients and included a sun parlor, a maternity ward and “ample ambulance service for the injured.
The Blue Ridge Hospital was the only hospital exclusively for African American patients in western North Carolina, as well as their on-site training school for Black nurses.
Image: Date and photographer unknown,
Image source: Digitalnc - Special Collections, UNC Asheville.
Narrative: African American Hospitals in North Carolina: 39 Institutional Histories 1880-1967
By Phoebe Ann Pollitt