Pilot Club Christmas ornament stirs memories of old Claxton Hospital

The Claxton Hospital is the latest local landmark to be featured on a Pilot Club of Dublin Christmas ornament, and it’s proving to be one of the club’s more popular ones.

“We’ve already sold at least 300, and we got them in (last) Wednesday,” Pilot Club member Sherry Mangum said Monday. “It’s been a great response.”

Proceeds from the annual ornament sale directly benefits local Pilot Club community projects including youth scholarships, its Brain Minders puppet show safety program for first graders and senior citizen initiatives.

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The ornaments are $20 and can be purchased from Pilot Club members or at Orr Insurance Agency at 904 Bellevue Ave. 

Supplies are limited. The club ordered 450 ornaments and expects to sell them fast.

The Claxton Hospital was founded by medical “pioneer” Dr. Edward Burton “E.B.” Claxton Sr., who began his practice in Kite in 1905 before moving to Dublin in 1912, according to the history provided with the ornament. Claxton established Claxton Sanitarium, later known as Claxton Hospital, in the 1930s.

Dr. Claxton continued in general practice, and in surgery and obstetrics at the hospital, until his death in 1954. The hospital continued operating into the 1970s. The Pilot Club history notes that its closing marked the “end of an era of physician-owned hospitals.”

The hospital building later served as the first Dublin Center campus for college classes in the 1980s. The site was eventually purchased by First Baptist Church and it used for green space.