Location: The intersection of Martin Luther King Junior Drive and Church Street, on the right when traveling south on Martin Luther King Junior Drive

County: Bulloch

Coordinates: 32.453516, 81.789274

Dedicated: 2026

Marker Type: Bulloch County Historical Society

Van Buren Sanitarium
(Located at 38 Elm Street)

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    In the era of segregation, African Americans in general and rural blacks in particular were left with few options for medical care beyond home remedies, traditional healers, and the vital services of midwives. In the early 20th century, reformers and African American physicians established a black hospital movement across the nation in an attempt to remedy this situation.

On December 22, 1918, Dr. Harvey Van Buren, Bulloch County’s first and only black physician during his lifetime, opened a hospital near here on Elm Street. When established, the Van Buren Sanitarium was 1 of only 118 black hospitals in the nation; 1 of only 8 in Georgia; and the only black hospital outside Savannah, Augusta, and Atlanta. The hospital served the African American community for nearly 50 years until Dr. Van Buren’s death in 1964.

A native of Sumter, South Carolina, Dr. Van Buren received his M.D. from Howard University in 1907 and eventually moved to Statesboro in 1915 with a vision to establish a hospital for African Americans with a focus on surgery. Through great personal expense, he had the hospital designed by the pioneering black architect Wallace Rayfield of Birmingham, Alabama, who designed important buildings across the South.

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The Van Buren Sanitarium was both the doctor’s home and a hospital with 12 rooms including a surgery on the second floor with a skylight. The bungalow style building included large corbelled brick chimneys, deep bracketed eaves and large windows for light and air. Patients recuperated sitting on a columned full-length porch enjoying well-groomed grounds. In 1925, the Statesboro Woman’s Club awarded the hospital the prize for best yard, noting that it was a “place of unusual beauty and had been carefully planned and planted with choicest flowers.”

The hospital was an important place for medical services during the 1918 influenza epidemic. It also trained black nurses and spearheaded important education efforts in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis (TB). Known as “consumption” in the 19th century, TB was a scourge and poverty and poor sanitation helped it spread. As part of early public health measures, Van Buren served on library and school committees recognizing that improving literacy and educational opportunities were vital to good health. The Van Buren Sanitarium, a place that provided quality health-care to those so long denied it, unfortunately burned in 2021.

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Supported by the Jack N. and Addie D. Averitt Foundation