A. G. Holley Hospital

Sunland Hospital refers to a chain of defunct mental health facilities located throughout the state of Florida.

Originally named the W. T. Edwards Tuberculosis Hospitals, the facilities were later remodeled into "Sunland Centers" with services for the mentally and physically disabled, specializing mostly in children. A large majority of the centers were shut down by 1983 for various health and safety reasons.

W.T. Edwards was the first chairman of the State Tuberculosis Board. When a new series of state-of-the-art tuberculosis hospitals opened in roughly 1952, they were named in honor of him. The hospitals were located all over the state of Florida, including Tampa, Lantana, Marianna, Tallahassee, Miami and several other cities in south Florida.

All of the hospital buildings were constructed in the same basic way. The main buildings were all very long and thin, consisting of 5 floors with a few smaller wings branching off from the main building. At the time, it was thought that fresh air was the best treatment for TB, so the buildings were riddled with multi-pane windows which could be opened by cranks. The back side of each building was a wall of windows, while the front windows were more evenly spaced apart, especially in sections that did not house patients.

When antibiotics effective against TB were developed, there was no longer a need for tuberculosis hospitals and the W. T. Edwards Hospitals were all closed by the start of the 1960s. The facilities fell under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Health and it wouldn't take long for the hospitals to reopen as Sunlands across the state.

In 1961 the Division of Sunland Training Centers was established on the Board of Commissioners for Institutions and replaced the Division of Farm Colonies in Florida. Many former W. T. Edwards Hospitals were remodeled and reopened as Sunland Mental Hospitals. The main Sunland building, located in Orlando, was the only one not housed in a former Edwards hospital.

At first the Centers did well, but soon they were plagued with problems, mostly due to understaffing and underfunding. The most infamous facility for patient neglect was the Sunland located in Tallahassee, which not only suffered from severe staff shortages, but also significant deterioration of the physical plant itself.

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