Chartered in 1832 by the Georgia General Assembly through a bequest of the Reverend Thomas Francis Williams, a Savannah Baptist minister, the Georgia Infirmary is the oldest-known African American hospital founded by whites in the United States. Initially located south of the city, the infirmary moved to this

site in 1838, but its original brick two-story Greek Revival building was reconstructed after a fire in 1872, and it later received modern additions. Until 1896, this hospital remained the only place that provided hospital care for African American Savannahians until physicians Alice and Cornelius McKane established their hospital for women and children (11.7), which hosted an early nursing school for black students that opened in 1904 and continued until 1937. As integration provided health-care options at larger hospitals, the Georgia Infirmary was shuttered and reopened, first as a stroke rehabilitation day-center in 1974 and then as the nation’s first Medicare-certified comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility in 1980. The high-rise Thomas Francis Williams Court Apartments nearby at 1900 Lincoln Street, completed in 1980, provides housing and services for low-income seniors.