West Virginia Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium at Denmar Pocahontas County West Virginia USA 187 Known Interments with several hundred people not accounted for in records. The West Virginia Legislature created the State Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium in 1917. According to the 1918 West Virginia Legislative Hand Book, black tuberculosis patients, who were West Virginia residents, were eligible for admission to the sanitarium provided they could pay for their care. The sanitarium admitted its first patients on January 31, 1919. In 1937 the legislature appropriated funds for a new hospital building at Denmar, which was completed in 1939. By the 1950s, medical science had developed more effective means to diagnose and treat tuberculosis and, in 1957, Denmar was converted to a state hospital for the chronically ill. The hospital closed in 1990 and the legislature appropriated funds for its conversion to the Denmar Correctional Center in 1993. In 1995 Warden Stephen Yardley and his staff at the Denmar Correctional Center compiled a list of 277 names of sanitarium patients believed to be buried on site. William P. McNeel and members of the Pocahontas County Historical Society scoured the county death records from 1923 to 1946 and made many corrections and additions to the original list. Staff at the West Virginia State Archives conducted a search of the state death records from 1919 to 1946 and discovered several hundred names that did not appear in either hospital or county records. These records are for those who are known to be buried at Denmar. Search for cemetery - West Virginia Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium at D findagrave
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 09:24:05 +0000
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