This is a blog version of a Facebook posting.

Looking back at McCain Sanatorium in Hoke County, which added a fire truck in early 1952, reported the Raleigh News & Observer on February 17, 1952.

It was built out of “begging, bolts, screws, and the ingenuity of its driver, Paul Cloer,” who was the maintenance chief at the facility. Using a “junkyard truck chassis” he add a “red signal light” from a funeral home that was trading an ambulance, a siren from a deputy sheriff, and a motor from an auto dealer that he turned into a 250-gallon booster.

The new truck replaced an antique “three-wheel job that would scarcely extinguish a match flame.” It cost $660, versus the $14,000 to $15,000 cost of a new fire engine.

McCain Sanatorium was one of three in the state and was expanding its capacity, with the addition of 80 more beds to increase the capacity to 680. There was a new nursing home, new employee housing, and other improvements.

Originally named the North Carolina State Sanatorium in 1908, it was the first state institution for the treatment of tuberculosis. It was later renamed for Dr. Paul P. McCain, who served as its superintendent from 1924 to 1926.

As TB rates declined, the facility was repurposed as a corrections facility, as a minimum-security healthcare center for male inmates. The facility was permanently closed in 2010.

McCain Prison Hospital also had a fire department, and it was listed in the state department of insurance directory in 1982.