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Robert Babington was reading his newspaper in Gastonia in 1909, when he came across a disturbing article about a young crippled child who was refused admission to an orphanage because he was handicapped. Robert then realized that North Carolina had no hospital for handicapped children.
A new mission was formed, and later the General Assembly approved $20,000 to start the hospital, stipulating that the community raise money to match this amount.
The North Carolina Orthopedic Hospital was born. It was the first one in the South.
It shut down in 1979 when larger hospitals began to meet the need.
– Ron Smith, APR, S&A Communications