The founding of Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in 1919 was, without question, the most significant accomplishment ever undertaken by the governing bodies of Florence and Lauderdale County. The birth of a hospital, as with other great institutions, did not come about in one generation. Unlike the Old Testament Exodus, where people were destined to drink from the wells they had not dug and eat from trees they had not planted, the second and third generations of those who established the hospital continue to contribute resources to its growth and expansion. The hospital’s history begins with the needs of the first settler. Its final chapter is not an ending story. It is rather a
beginning of a new Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital as it prepares to meet the needs of
the next generation.