Walden Hospital

Wheeler built the hospital and then a way to pay for it. Walden was dedicated on July 30, 1915, with thirty beds, nine private rooms and a twelve-bed ward, and she managed, operated and financed it. In 1925 she started the Nurse Service Club, a prepaid hospitalization plan, and the same month helped organize Chattanooga's first chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. For twenty years the hospital also trained nurses. It closed on June 30, 1953, and in 1962 the city housing authority named a project the Emma Wheeler Homes.

What the plaque says

Walden Hospital Dr. Emma Rochelle Wheeler, a graduate of Meharry Medical College, established, owned and operated Walden Hospital beginning in 1915. Established to serve the medical needs of Chattanooga's Negro community, the hospital had a 30-bed capacity. Walden was staffed by 19 black doctors of the Mountain City Medical Society. For 20 years, the hospital served as a nursing school. After 37 years of service, Walden Hospital closed in June 1952.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bessie Smith Cultural Center — 0.3 mi
  Chattanooga's African American museum and performance hall on the old Ninth Street, named for the Empress of the Blues, who started out singing for change on that same street.
• Tennessee Aquarium — 0.9 mi
  A river-themed aquarium that opened on May 1, 1992, on the Chattanooga bank where John Ross kept a trading post, tracing a raindrop from the Appalachians to the Gulf.
• Walnut Street Bridge — 1.0 mi
  An 1890 truss bridge now open to walkers, and the place where Alfred Blount in 1893 and Ed Johnson in 1906 were lynched, the case that led to the Supreme Court's only criminal trial.
• Ross's Landing — 1.1 mi
  The Tennessee River landing where Chattanooga began and where Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee people were put on boats and ferried out in 1837 and 1838.

More markers nearby

• The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga — steps away
• Martin Hotel — 0.2 mi
• First Coca-Cola Bottling Company in the United States — 0.3 mi
• Abby Crawford Milton — 0.3 mi