Morton Plant Hospital is a 687-bed hospital at 300 Pinellas Street in

Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city and the county seat of Pinellas County, Florida, United States, west of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and north of St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies T ...

. Established in 1916, Morton Plant Hospital provides services in more than fifty specialty areas. It is part of the greater

BayCare Health System BayCare Health System is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, that operates 16 hospitals across Florida. In 2023, it was the third largest hospital network in Florida. History Early history BayCare can trace its roots t ...

History

Morton Freeman Plant Morton Freeman Plant (August 18, 1851, in Branford, Connecticut – November 4, 1918, in New York City) was an American financier. Biography Morton Freeman Plant was the son of Henry Bradley and Ellen Elizabeth (Blackstone) Plant. His father was a ...

was the son of Henry Bradley Plant, founder of the

Plant System The Plant System, named after its owner, Henry B. Plant, was a system of railroads and steamboats in the U.S. South, taken over by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. The original line of the system was the Savannah, Florida and Western ...

of railroads, steamships, and associated hotels. In 1905, Morton F. Plant built a second home in the then-small town of Clearwater, near the

Belleview Biltmore The Belleview-Biltmore Resort and Spa was a historic resort hotel located at 25 Belleview Boulevard in the town of Belleair, Florida, United States. Partially demolished in 2016, the hotel structure was the last remaining grand historic hotel of ...

hotel established by his father. He maintained a mansion in New York City at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street. In 1912, while on vacation, Plant's son was injured in a car accident and required medical attention. However, there was not a hospital in Clearwater and to get the help, Plant used his railroad connections to have a surgical team brought down by rail from Chicago along with a special surgical car. Afterwards, Plant pledged money for the building of a hospital in Clearwater, with the city coming up with the other half. The site chosen was one of the high bluffs, unique in peninsular Florida, overlooking Clearwater Bay. The main hospital building faces west toward the

Intracoastal Waterway The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a Navigability, inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Massachusetts southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, the ...

, the

barrier islands Barrier islands are a coastal landform, a type of dune system and sand island, where an area of sand has been formed by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a few is ...

, and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. The current main building, known as the Witt Pavilion, was constructed in 1966. Other facilities include the 1941 Pavilion, the Barnard Pavilion, the Adler Pavilion, the Sarah Walker Women's Center, the Morgan Heart Hospital, the Cantonis building which houses the

emergency room An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pat ...

, the Day Surgery Pavilion, the Ptak Orthopaedic and Neuroscience Pavilion, the Madonna Ptak Rehabilitation Center, the Axelrod Pavilion, the Cheek-Powell Heart and Vascular Pavilion, the Powell Cancer Center, and the Lykes Pavilion. The Morgan Heart Hospital replaced the Roebling building, which was demolished in 2005. The new Axelrod Pavilion incorporated the former Carlisle Imaging facility.

References

{{authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1941 Hospital buildings completed in 1966 Hospitals in Florida Buildings and structures in Clearwater, Florida BayCare Health System

History

See also

References