Former Sunland Hospital workers reunite to remember time working at Tallahassee facility

Tarah Jean, Tallahassee Democrat

Updated March 28, 2024 at 10:23 PM·6 min read

It’s been 40 years since Sunland Hospital — once dubbed a “self-contained city” of its own — was closed for good.

Originally opened in the 1950s for tuberculosis care, it later became a hospital for patients — most of whom were kids — with severe physical and mental disabilities. It was "ordered closed in 1979 by the Florida Legislature, amid charges of overcrowding, poor sanitation, lack of employee training and patient abuse," the late Tallahassee Democrat columnist Gerald Ensley explained.

It shut down in 1983 and long stood empty on Phillips Road, just up from the current headquarters of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It was demolished almost 20 years ago and an apartment complex now is on the site.

But former employees of the hospital, like Gadsden County native Sara Carter, remember vividly what life was like working in the history-filled facility.

“When you walked in, you had a choice. You could cry and be disgusted and leave, or you could get in there and try to make it better,” said Carter, 82, who was a music therapist there. “Everybody in there — down to the last person — was there to make it better for those folks.”

Former workers of Tallahassee's old Sunland Hospital take a photo during a workers reunion in Tallahassee on March 8, 2024. (left to right: Kathy Rogers Milton, Tonja Quick Estes, Cathy Wacksman, Teresa Gray, Judy Conn, Sara Carter, Bill Mabile)

Carter is one of over 60 former employees of the closed institution who gathered at Casa Grande Margaritas and Cocina on Thomasville Road a few weeks ago for a workers reunion that took years of planning.

Despite the challenging responsibilities of their roles, Carter says her 16 years of working at Sunland was by far the “most impactful experience” of her life.

What was Sunland Hospital?

Sunland Hospital began as a tuberculosis-treating facility in Tallahassee in 1952 called the W.T. Edwards Hospital, which was named after the chairman of the state tuberculosis board in Florida.

Tuberculosis, an infectious lung disease, was one of the nation's most deadly diseases at the time and was mainly treated with sanatoriums that gave patients fresh air to heal the lesions on their lungs. Edwards spearheaded the construction of numerous tuberculosis hospitals across the state, including in Tampa, Orlando and Lantana.

In a 2016 column that Ensley wrote about the history of Tallahassee’s Sunland, he said the hospital was located at what is now the intersection of Phillips and Blair Stone roads. It was “considered well out in the country, where the pure air could help tuberculosis patients.”

The Tallahassee-based tuberculosis hospital — which was established four years after Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare — was a 650-foot-long five-story structure with 160 workers and enough beds for 350 patients.

In addition, the hospital had its own laundry, hair salon, heating plant and 160 acres of landscaping along with six individual homes for physicians and their families, and an apartment complex for 72 nurses.

Since vaccines were later successful in preventing tuberculosis and the number of cases went down, the W.T. Edwards Hospital was closed in 1966.

But a year later, the facility was remodeled and opened as Sunland Hospital — one of six statewide Sunland facilities for the mentally and physically disabled. The Tallahassee location also was home to Sunland Public School, a center for learning on the fifth floor.

Before the school was created, Sunland patients would be in beds or enclosed cribs most of the time unless they were brought out to sit in wheelchairs or to spend time on mats to learn skills such as how to be friendly.

“Working there was a joy for me,” said Pamela Hammock, the former principal of Sunland Public School. She graduated from Florida State University with a master’s in special education before the job.

“The children taught me patience, and I had all the patience in the world to help a child learn how to feed themselves, for example — even if it took a year,” she added.

Pamela Hammock, former principal of Sunland Hospital's Sunland Public School, holds up an old photo during a Sunland Hospital workers reunion in Tallahassee on March 8, 2024.

Tallahassee’s Sunland Hospital was officially closed down in December 1983 and patients were moved to traditional school settings. “It was a joy to see the students and the residents go into smaller facilities and have more home-like environments,” Hammock said.

Marianna, Florida's Sunland Center — a developmental disabilities center operated by the Agency for Persons with Disabilities — is the only facility across the state that continues to carry the Sunland name.

‘A good starting place’ for FSU, FAMU students

Florida State University would send many of its students to the hospital for training and experience in the field of healthcare. One of the students was Tallahassee native Bill Mabile, former director of education and training at Sunland Hospital.

Mobile, who earned a master’s degree in education administration at FSU, was right out of college when he started working at the facility in 1970.

“It was a good place to work for young people ... it was a good starting place for everybody, but I think some people burned out,” said Mobile, now 77. “It was a difficult population to work with at best, and it was physically taxing, too. You had to push wheelchairs, lift people sometimes and move them from their chairs to the mats and beds.”

Former Sunland Hospital workers Bill Mabile (left) and Sara Carter (right) attend a workers reunion in Tallahassee on March 8, 2024.

“There were people with multiple disabilities and it was rough, but it felt good to see their progress,” he added. “We enjoyed what we did.”

Students from Florida A&M University transitioned to Sunland Hospital to start getting work experience as well, including Marie Colson, who was Sunland’s director of nursing.

After graduating from FAMU with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1963, Colson started working at the facility while it was still a tuberculosis hospital.

She was also the first Black nursing director to be employed by the state’s old Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

“We all were very dedicated to those children,” said Colson, 84, a Tallahassee native. "It was a very good experience.”

Marie Colson, former director of nursing at the old Sunland Hospital, attends a workers reunion in Tallahassee on March 8, 2024.

Sunland alumni unhappy with haunted reputation

Before Tallahassee’s Sunland building was demolished following its closure, it sat abandoned for decades and became the subject of ghost stories.

Teenagers and college students threw parties and explored the isolated building in the middle of the night while other trespassers spray-painted its walls and started fires there, former employees said.

Over time, the building’s reputation became widely regarded as haunted. Ensley noted that “nearby residents reported hearing ghostly screams at night.”

But during the reunion, former teacher Teresa Gray said she was disappointed about that reputation: “I don't want our memory there to be mentioned as a haunted place of neglect,” Gray told the former employees, whose heads nodded in agreement.

At the reunion, the former colleagues spent time catching up with each other over lunch and reminisced with those that they haven’t seen since the hospital closed. Memories of it are still engraved in the minds of the individuals who served there.

“Forty years later, it still means a lot to me,” Carter said.