The story below is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Mount Regis, once a tuberculosis sanitorium starting in 1914, became an addiction treatment center before the original building was destroyed by fire in 2016.
Ana Morales / Archival Image Courtesy of The Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries
As early as 1914, the building pictured here was a medical facility.
It was Mount Regis Sanitorium, a 20-bed institution on Kimball Avenue in Salem that served as a hospital for treating tuberculosis. Demand for its services was high, and after five years, its bed count grew to 65.
The sanitorium also housed a nursing training program and continued as a residential space for local nurses after it closed in 1939, according to an article detailing its history in the Salem Times-Register.
In 1947, it became White Cross Hospital and focused on treating alcohol abuse. Patients from other states traveled there for treatment. Over time, the facility offered medication-assisted therapy and services to treat drug addiction.
In 1986, the building’s identity returned to its roots, and it was renamed Mount Regis Treatment Center, according to the Salem Times-Register.
Fast forward to 2018, when a new inpatient Mount Regis Center for those recovering from addiction and behavioral health conditions opened at 125 Knotbreak Road in Salem.
Plans to open this new, expanded location were underway before a fire in 2016 destroyed the original Mount Regis location on Kimball Avenue in Salem.
Mount Regis Center also has outpatient locations in Blacksburg and on Roanoke Boulevard in Salem, according to the center’s website.
The story above is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!