Our History... 70 years of serving Fulton County and the surrounding communities Editor’s Note: This historical look was originally produced in book form in 1976 as part of a dedication. It is reprinted with permission. long Cove Creek’s rippling southerly itinerary where it marks the lowest elevation of the Great Cove Valley between Tuscarora Mountain and Scrub Ridge, there is a stretch where for some distance the narrow waterway marks the western-most boundary of the Borough of McConnellsburg. In the early summer of 1949, Mack Morton’s sloping field of pasture grasses framed the southwestern quarter of the borough there. And about 500 yards up the slope from where the waters of Cove Creek lapped the soil and grasses of Morton’s cow pastures, grazed about a score Guernsey milk cows. A party of land surveyors made their way through the field, shooing away the cattle as they went. The surveyors set up their tripod and transit and the elevation rod was hustled from point to point. Metes and bounds were duly logged in an engineer’s notebook. And when the surveying party went home that day, each step they took brought Fulton County closer to the realization of a dream. The party had laid out the site of Fulton County Medical Center. The dream first took form almost a half-decade before. Fundraising drives were already in full swing. Two other sites in McConnellsburg had been considered and rejected. A non-profit corporation had been formed and a board of directors had been named. In 1945, McConnellsburg was the county seat, as it is today. And it was, and still is, the center of commerce for this rural and predominantly agricultural county. At that time, more than a quarter of a century ago, the borough boasted a motion picture theater, two banks, two weekly newspapers (a third’s 70-year lifespan had already come and gone), a water works, electric lights, and a volunteer fire company, which one early historian noted, even had a fire alarm. But nowhere in McConnells-
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1940s Oct. 7, 1946: Dr. E.H. MacKinlay was a guest of the Green Hill Civic Club where he discussed the need and possibility of establishing a clinic or maternity home in Fulton County.
1946
A doctor’s dream
Many people fail to appreciate the effect geography and topography have on a community’s development. Most people’s knowledge of these disciplines stems from obscure memories of junior high school social
Feb. 21, 1947: The Fulton County Medical Center was tentatively organized.
April 17, 1947: Board of Directors elected: Mr. James Kendall, Mr. J. Edwin Palmer, Mrs. J.J. Palmer, Mr. William Wakefield, Mrs. Max Mellott, Miss Blanche Swope, Mrs. Lena McClain, Mr. Bruce Douglas, Mr. Arlen Hebner, Mr. Bruce Fore, Mrs. Harvey Stunk, Mr. Albert Foster, Dr. MacKinlay and RD. Sherwin
1947 April 17, 1947: Land donated to build the center by Mrs. Chris Shimer and Mr. Merrill Nace at the 216 S. First Street location.
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burg, nor in all of Fulton County, was there erected a hospital – not even a dispensary or small clinic. There were three physicians, all general practitioners, in the county then, two with offices in McConnellsburg and one in Needmore. These hardy physicians served the villages and crossroads of the hinterland, delivering babies in farmhouse bedrooms and plucking tonsils from infected young throats in parlors and kitchens. Hard-pressed clients sometimes offered geese or sides of bacon in payments of “professional services rendered.” Three doctors from Hancock, Md., included in their rounds many clients from the lower end of the county. But Hancock, too, was without a hospital. The closest institutions of higher medicine were all at least 10 miles from the county line, and some were two or three or more times that distance. And depending on where in Fulton County one lived, those distances might have doubled or tripled again. More importantly, geographic barriers lay between the hospitals and their Fulton County clients. To the east, Cove and Tuscarora mountains guarded the approach to the Chambersburg and Washington County (Md.) hospitals, as did Sideling Hill and Town Hill Mountains block the passage to Dr. Sipes’ small hospital in Everett. To the south, the Potomac River lay between Warfordsburg in southern Fulton County and War Memorial Hospital in Berkeley Springs, W.Va. Time, naturally, was of the essence and bad weather could turn a simple hour’s drive into an eternity of apprehension, or worse – death.
THTH FULTON ANNIVERSARY FULTONCOUNTY COUNTYMEDICAL MEDICALCENTER’S CENTER’S7070 ANNIVERSARY
August 1947: Certificate to register name was purchased and permission to solicit funds.
August 9, 1947: A “Cake Festival” was the first fundraiser held to raise funds for the new FCMC; it raised $329.22.
Nov. 25, 1947: Corporation Bylaws adopted.
