Qualla: Sunland Hospital https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Sunland Hospital https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital Sunland Hospital: Introduction https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital/ The photographs in the Florida State Archives show children in Boy Scout uniforms posing from wheelchairs and hospital beds. They are smiling, arranged for the camera, wearing the same neckerchiefs and merit badge sashes as any other troop. But these scouts held their meetings on the grounds of a state institution, and the grounds were crumbling around them. The Sunland Hospital system -- a chain of facilities scattered across Florida from Tampa to Tallahassee to Miami -- began with the best of mid-century medical optimism and ended in scandal, demolition, and a haunted house attraction built from the rubble. It is a story about what happens when a state builds institutions it cannot afford to maintain and fills them with the people least able to advocate for themselves.

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/k/j/sunland-hospital-wp/djkj-sunland-hospital-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Sunland Hospital: The Hospitals That Fresh Air Built https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital/ The story begins with tuberculosis. W.T. Edwards came to Florida from Virginia in 1925 alongside his business partner Alfred I. du Pont and served as vice president of the St. Joe Paper Company. He became the first chairman of the State Tuberculosis Board, and when a new series o...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/k/j/sunland-hospital-wp/djkj-sunland-hospital-the-hospitals-that-fresh-air-built.mp3 0:06 2 full Sunland Hospital: Sunland Rising https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital/ The new purpose arrived in 1961, when the Division of Sunland Training Centers was established under the Board of Commissioners for Institutions, replacing the Division of Farm Colonies. The former TB hospitals were remodeled and reopened as Sunland Mental Hospitals, serving the ...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/k/j/sunland-hospital-wp/djkj-sunland-hospital-sunland-rising.mp3 0:06 3 full Sunland Hospital: The Slow Collapse https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital/ The trying was not enough. Understaffing and underfunding plagued the Sunland system from the beginning, and conditions deteriorated steadily through the late 1960s and 1970s. The Tallahassee facility became the most notorious, suffering not only from severe staff shortages but a...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/k/j/sunland-hospital-wp/djkj-sunland-hospital-the-slow-collapse.mp3 0:06 4 full Sunland Hospital: Demolished and Forgotten https://qualla.com/sunland-hospital/ The Tallahassee Sunland received its first ten residents from the Orlando facility in March 1967. It closed in 1983 after years of scandals, funding cuts, and the broader shift toward community care. The abandoned property sat for two decades. A Winter Park businessman nearly pur...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/k/j/sunland-hospital-wp/djkj-sunland-hospital-demolished-and-forgotten.mp3 0:06 5 full