The story of a centralized health care facility for Bowling Green and area communities evolved over time from the efforts of a small group of local health care pioneers and from the financial support of visionary Bowling Green residents Fred and Grace Millikin Uhlman. For the fiftieth anniversary of the Wood County Hospital, a comprehensive history,  It Started with Doctors on Horseback by Roger Chapman, chronicling the local hardships and the many medical advances which forever changed health care in this area, was published in 2001.

The harsh reality of living within the mosquito-infested Black Swamp compounded many ailments of the early settlers who lacked access to the miraculous painkillers, sulfa drugs, penicillin and antibiotics that later revolutionized the face of medicine. Many early residents relied almost exclusively on self-doctoring with natural, herbal and home remedies to ease their discomfort. Certainly the draining of the swamp was a major boon to public health by the late 19th century. In the late 1860’s, the Wood County Infirmary opened for those without the financial wherewithal or good health to sustain themselves.

If one had transportation available and was not in precarious health to make the trip to Toledo, he or she could select from St. Vincent, Toledo, Riverside or Robinwood hospitals, which had all opened their doors before the century’s end. Closer to home, however, hospitals were not the norm. Doctors made house calls and surgeries might be performed on the kitchen table because few “patients” ventured beyond the walls of their homes for medical attention.

In 1889, Dr. Ebenezer W. Schooley opened a sanitarium near Bowling Green in Weston, Ohio. Such sanitariums at the time were often geared toward the improvement and re-building of one’s health through various types of water, electric and massage therapy along with special diets, exercise and relaxation. One might even consider the sanitarium more closely akin to a spa than to a hospital with its surgery and medical regimens. Admittedly, however, sanitariums often developed medical specialties concentrating on specific health disorders.

Dr. Schooley expanded his facility in 1894 to keep up with demand. This sanitarium featured nine bathrooms (two electric, seven plain) with a nearby sweat room, a lab, an electric room and an operating room. Various baths/treatments included fresh-water, salt-water, electric, heat, massage and ‘Swedish Treatment.’ The Weston facility claimed to help sufferers of rheumatism, neuralgia, paralysis, urinary diseases and female maladies. Dr. Schooley’s surgical department was operated by Dr. John H. Rheinfrank of Perrysburg, who had established his own fourteen bed hospital in that community in the late 1880’s. The hospital became renowned for its thyroid treatments and remained in operation until 1955.

Advances in surgery and medical procedure and the development of physicians trained in certain treatment specialties led to the growth of hospitals and possibly created more public awareness that such services could not be provided at home with a house call. Bowling Green had several early health care facilities that furthered the cause of “modern” medical treatment in Wood County. Local doctors desired to do surgeries locally rather than to risk transporting patients great distances for treatment.

This first hospital was eclipsed around 1910 when Chester B. Williams opened the Bowling Green, or Williams Sanitarium (later Bowling Green Sanitarium and Hospital), at 260 South Prospect Street. Prior to this, a 475 S. Church street location was listed. The building on Prospect Street was the former Yonker home perched on a high sand ridge. Mr. Williams, a dietitian and active member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, was certified in the practicing of the Battle Creek method of baths and diet. He offered this service at his sanitarium. Sweat baths, electrical stimulus, massage and vegetarian foods were hallmarks of the program. Williams was licensed to employ hydrotherapy, mechanotherapy and massage treatments.

Chester Williams enlarged the existing house with two substantial wings, glassed-in a sun room and a basement to accommodate baths, electrical equipment, showers, laundry, a dining room and fruit storage. A prominent veranda extended across the front of the main floor which featured two sitting rooms, seven patient rooms and family apartments. On the second floor were eight additional patient rooms, an office, and a 12’x14’ operating room for local physicians who brought their own instruments to use. The mammoth structure included a third floor with two spacious private rooms and quarters for employees.

For years, the Williams Sanitarium was the only hospital between Findlay and Toledo and between Fremont and Napoleon. The first babies born in a hospital in Bowling Green were born at that facility. It was extremely popular with local doctors who needed a place to care for their patients. Most traffic accident victims were to Williams Sanitarium for treatment. A 1939 advertisement promoted a “private home for the care of invalids, convalescents and nervous cases,” as well as a treatment of prostate gland, kidneys, and hemorrhoids. After Williams’ death, “the business only remained open for a year and was called Bowling Green Health Baths. The massive structure was converted into apartments and was razed in the late 1950’s. A solid beginning for hospital care in Bowling Green, however, had finally been achieved.

A variety of other health care facilities opened in town while efforts were in the works to develop the Wood County Hospital. The eight bed General Hospital at 432 South Main Street, located across the street from South Main Elementary, was established by Clara Specht and Loretta Lahl and remained in operation from 1932-1940. Community Hospital was opened in 1931 by nurse Beth Riggs on North Main Street but was moved to the former Dr. A.J. Manville home at 416 West Wooster Street. The hospital served as a fourteen bed facility with an operating room on the second floor. By 1947 Wood County Hospital assisted the community hospital with rent to keep them open until the Wood County Hospital was operational. In 1941 Bowling Green State University’s Johnston Health Services Building opened its forty bed infirmary with services available to the community only when classes were not in session.

The movement toward a modern hospital in Bowling Green was attributed to the efforts of Dr. Frank V. Boyle in 1928. He and Dr. E.H. Mercer submitted a petition to the Bowling Green City Council signed by ten percent of the city voters requesting a referendum vote on a $75,000 bond issue for a city hospital. The proposed single story, twenty bed facility was to be called Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital. Although the proposal was supported by local chapters of the Exchange Club, Kiwanis and the American Legion, it did not win the required fifty-five percent majority of votes. Perhaps people were hesitant about financially supporting a hospital or did not feel that it was particularly needed in the community. In fact, the Wood County Democrat, only a few years earlier, had praised Chester Williams’ privately funded sanitarium ‘…Mr. Williams, assisted by his loyal and congenial wife, has given this community a sanitarium that is worthy of praise, unaided by anyone financially or asking our citizens for anything.’ In 1940, another hospital bond issue was defeated by falling short of the sixty-five percent majority of votes.

After World War II skies brightened, and the public attitude toward health issues seemed more optimistic. Hospital construction in the U.S. boomed, and medical developments advanced. In 1946 the federal Hill-Burton Act made funds available for new hospitals in smaller communities and rural areas. Under the Ohio Hospital Plan, submitted by the Ohio Medical Association, the state health department was given $13,000,000 in federal grants for the creation and overseeing of an interdependent hospital system for the state. As a result, fifty-seven communities pursued funding and formed local fundraising initiatives to match grant dollars. Wood County Hospital moved closer to reality with the development of these federal and state programs.

Alva W. Bachman, Bowling Green Mayor at the time, was made chair of a committee for the planning and promotion of a modern hospital in 1944. Only one-third of the $750,000 cost was provided through federal funding with the remaining two-thirds raised locally. In 1945, Fred W. Uhlman, founder and president of the F.W. Uhlman and Company department stores, donated $100,000 toward construction of the building. He envisioned the building as a memorial to his parents (Weston residents) and his in-laws, the William H. Millikin family, who rose to prominence locally during the oil boom and constructed the palatial hotel downtown.

A year later Uhlman donated another $100,000 to the effort and followed up with a $50,000 challenge grant to stimulate community contributions in 1947. Little did he know that hospital would serve as his home for the last three years of his life. Uhlman died at the age of 93 in 1974.

After the initial Uhlman gift, the Wood County Hospital Association was incorporated. The second gift prompted the $100,000 purchase of approximately an eight acre site located off West Wooster Street from the city. During the 1947 hospital fund drive, Dr. Frank V. Boyle, the hospital’s first chief of staff, united local doctors behind the building effort. In 1950, Anna Belle Kinney, a notable medical professional, was hired to help organize the soon-to-open hospital. She hired the original staff, including William S. Culbertson as business manger and later assistant administrator who would replace her as chief administrator in 1967.

Within the first six months, the hospital registered over 2,000 patients with over 350 babies delivered. The combined efforts of the Wood County Medical Society’s women’s auxiliary and the executive board of the Bowling Green Woman’s Club helped form the Wood County Hospital Guild several years after the hospital opened.

From the start, the spirit of volunteerism and fundraising of this important organization has contributed greatly to the hospital’s continued growth and development.

Since it opened, building expansion has remained a major priority at the hospital. In 1954, a third floor addition resulted in nineteen more beds, and forty-three were added during a 1962 expansion. By 1964 a new emergency room was installed, and the momentum to modernize and keep pace continued in 1970, 1978-1980, 1982 and 2000-2001. The state-of-the art hospital unveiled its largest and most ambitious building initiative in 2007. The $35,000,000 project with a 100,000 square foot addition will increase the hospital’s size by fifty percent and include fifty- six private patient rooms, a Surgery Center with six operating suites and four procedure rooms, expanded emergency services, and a chapel.

Undeniably, medical treatment in Wood County has come a long way from the era of home remedy and house calls. Since its arrival in 1951, Wood County Hospital has continued to improve its place in the community by remaining at the forefront of current medical treatment and services to help us all lead healthier lives.