Artist Charles Peck spent about a month researching the historic background for the six panels of this mural. Archaeologists and university officials supplied information to make the mural as authentic as possible. 

 The first panel shows three Calusa Indian medicine men and priests trying to heal a sick woman. 

 The second panel depicts conquistadors and a combat surgeon taking care of their soldiers.  Combat medicine often involved blood-letting and amputation.

 Panel number three was based on an 1882-83 malaria epidemic.  Dr. J. F. Cronin was the first quarantine inspector in Charlotte Harbor and is shown giving a shot.  The scene is inside a quarantine station on the bay side of Boca Grande.  The station was moved to the Gulf side when they discovered it was mosquitoes that carried the disease and the bay side was infested with mosquitoes. 

 Panel four shows the new quarantine station as it looked in 1904 on the island's Gulf side and the schooner Proctor used as a temporary quarantine station

 The fifth panel shows Dr. David N. McQueen, one of the first modern doctors to settle in our county near the turn of the century.  Also shown in the buckboard is Nathaniel "Little Doc" McQueen being pulled by "Jim" the horse.   McQueen's daughter, Lucille Bloomquist and Nathaniel's son Robert "Bucky" McQueen attended the March 1998 dedication ceremony. 

 Panel six is a painting of the first hospital built in Charlotte County in 1947.  The facility had a dozen beds.  Also shown are three scenes of early x-ray equipment, an operating table and a patient’s bed.

 This mural will be destroyed when the building is refaced in June 2009.  

SW Florida Regional Imaging, 329    E. Olympia Ave

Dedicated March 1998