Health Care

There were two hospitals in Henderson County, both organized prior to 1920.
Patton Hospital, built in 1913, was located on Highland Avenue in the Hyman Heights neighborhood of Hendersonville. There was room for 26 patients with five staff doctors.
The hospital and doctors with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Naples community had built several outbuildings and the campus housing doctor offices, hospital facilities and a tuberculosis sanitarium. In 1927 the name was formally changed to Mountain Sanitarium and Hospital. People came from all over the nation to be treated for TB at the sanitarium.
In 1926 the Fletcher Hospital School of Nursing opened on the campus.
The 1926 directory for Hendersonville listed 16 physicians and surgeons in the town of Hendersonville.
The climate of Western North Carolina was claimed to be “everything desired” for the treatment of tuberculosis.
Dr. Lucius Morse’s Sanatorium for Tuberculosis opened in 1908 in Chimney Rock.
Dr. William R. Kirk, a founder and trustee of Patton Hospital, had a tuberculosis sanitarium. It was known by various names: the Tudor and Carson Cottages, Kirk’s Sanatorium and by 1926 the Edgemont Sanatorium located on Kanuga Street.
Dr. Arthur Guerard opened the Heidelberg Sanatorium in 1910 where Bonclarken is located today in Flat Rock.
See http://hendersonheritage.com/religion-and-health-care-1900-1920/

 Religion

Berea Baptist Church near Flat Rock and Crab Creek was organized in the 1920s.
Bethel Wesleyan Church was the first Wesleyan Methodist church to organize in the county. It was organized in 1926 in the Tracy Grove community.
Agudas Israel – The first Jewish families began to settle in Hendersonville about 1900. Edward Lewis left Polish Russia in 1887 and moved to Hendersonville in 1900 and opened the E. Lewis & Son dry goods store. Lewis was followed by Harry Patterson, who came to the United States from Russia in 1899 and moved to Hendersonville in 1906. In 1910, he was a tailor who owned his own shop.  During the next decade, Patterson opened a dry goods store that grew into a department store.
In 1921, according to the Hendersonville City Directory, the large majority of adult Jews worked at either Patterson’s Department Store or E. Lewis & Son.
In 1922, the growing Jewish community formed Congregation Agudas Israel. In 1925, Agudas Israel purchased an old electric company building which they converted into a synagogue. This building was located on King Street next to the public library. That same year, congregation member Louis Williams brought his younger brother, Chaim Williamowsky, to town to serve as the congregation’s rabbi. Williamowsky led services, taught Hebrew to the children, and slaughtered kosher meat for the Orthodox congregation.
Hendersonville continued to grow as a summer resort destination. Jews were among those who vacationed in Hendersonville. Five different Jewish-owned boarding houses opened in town, catering to Jewish tourists from Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Three of these boarding houses served kosher food, as they would hire a full-time shochet to slaughter beef and chickens during the summer. Jews owned a wide array of other businesses in Hendersonville. Louis and Rosena Sherman opened a sporting goods store on Main Street in 1922. Morris Kalin opened a furniture store after coming to town in 1929. Louis Williams opened a hardware store. Daniel Michalove owned a railroad salvage and furniture store while Jack Michalove had a wholesale hosiery business.
The Agudas Israel Congregation began a major building campaign in 2000. Land was purchased in Laurel Park and a new synagogue built.
Bonclarken Assembly Grounds open in Flat Rock opened by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1922. In 1921 and 1922 the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church purchased acreage. Dr. Arthur Rose Guerard had purchased the property and built the Heidelberg House in 1886. The house was enlarged in 1903 and later opened as a tuberculosis sanatorium. After a few years he turned the former home and sanatorium into the Heidelberg Hotel. The site became home to the Bonclarken Conference Center and summer camps of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Kanuga Conferences opened as an Episcopal center and camp in 1928. The old Pleasant Hill community was first the site of the old Kanuga Lake Club and later the Episcopal Kanuga Conferences Center and Camps.
George Stephens established the Kanuga Lake Club in 1907 and in 1908 built a dam on Little Mud Creek to form a lake. Architect Richard Sharp Smith designed the one-story frame cottages. A clubhouse and roads were built. The Flood of 1916 left the club in ruins.
In 1928 and 1929 the Episcopal Diocese purchased the property. Youth camps were built on the property, along with an outdoor and indoor chapel. The Episcopal Conference Center is now the largest Episcopal center in the United States.