Burrell Memorial Hospital, 1955

Burrell Memorial Hospital, a medical facility founded to serve the needs of Black Roanoke residents barred from segregated white hospitals, began as a 10-bed hospital on Henry Street in Roanoke’s Gainsboro neighborhood. In 1921 it moved into the much larger Allegheny Institute on McDowell Avenue. The structure in this picture, sometimes called the New Burrell Memorial Hospital, was completed in 1955.

Burrell Memorial Hospital was named after Dr. Isaac David Burrell, a Black physician who, with several colleagues, had been working to open a hospital for the Black residents of Gainsboro. While planning this project, Dr. Burrell fell ill with gallstones. He was refused treatment at the local Roanoke Hospital and had to seek treatment elsewhere. After traveling over 240 miles by train to Freedman’s Hospital in Washington DC, he passed away. His colleagues named the new hospital in his memory.