In Search of A Building Site
Finding an acceptable site was an uphill battle. The Board of Health placed ads across the state for a site where a "colored sanatorium" could be built. The first location considered was in Ivor, Virginia. Local whites fiercely protested the facility, as recorded in the Aug. 24, 1916 State Board of Health minutes:
- "While the negotiations were in progress, and before any papers were passed, a large number of protests began to come into the health department from citizens of Ivor, objecting seriously to the location of such an institution at that point. The Commissioner went down to Ivor and attempted to allay the feeling, without result. A number of the citizens had employed an attorney and a delegation bringing a large petition entered emphatic protest before the committee."
The Piedmont Sanatorium committee then visited a site in Lynchburg, Virginia but received an even harsher response. According to The Tuberculosis Experience of African-Americans in Virginia, "any idea of such purchase was immediately abandoned."
In 1917, the committee hired a real estate agent named Mr. Barnes to negotiate the purchase of a site in Burkeville, Virginia. This time, the committee asked a group of citizens from Burkeville to sign a statement which said that the sanatorium could be built there. Nonetheless, opposition emerged for a third time. An attorney named Mr. H.H. Watson wrote a letter to the committee on behalf of a group of citizens who opposed locating the sanatorium in Burkeville. Impatient with the delays, this time the State Board of Health ignored the opposition and began construction of Piedmont Sanatorium on a 300 acre (1.2 km²) parcel in Burkeville .
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