100th Anniversary Of Manatee County's Public Health Department Celebrated: DOH

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — A showcase celebrating 100 years of public health in Manatee County is on display in the lobby of the Manatee County Administration building at 1112 Manatee Ave. W. in Bradenton.

The display, created by the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County and the Manatee County government, features the earliest calls for a public health department to be set up in the county, copied from Manatee Board of County Commission meeting minutes dating back to 1921, according to a DOH news release.

“The Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Manatee Florida have determined to establish a Public Health Department for said County and have appropriated the sum of $3000.00 therefoe [sic],” meeting minutes from Aug. 6, 1921, read.

Several months later, county commissioners decided on the salary for the public health nurse running the Manatee Public Health Department.

“The Board then took up the matter of the salary of the Public Health Nurse and it having been considered at previous meeting, the said salary of said Public Health Nurse be and the same is hereby fixed at $150,00 [sic] per month to begin December 1st 1921, and the Clerk was ordered to draw warrants for same,” meeting minutes from Jan. 14, 1922, read.

A caption near the photo of the first site of the Manatee Public Health Department notes that oversight of the department passed from the Manatee County government to the Florida Department of Health in 1947, the DOH said.

Photos of locally elected officials who approved plans for the public health department in 1921 — including Commissioners William Price Frier, Mack O. Harrison, William Kirkhuff and William R. Whitaker — as well as photos of current commissioners also appear in the display.

In between the county commissioner photos are images of Dr. Tolliver M. McDuffee and Dr. Jennifer Bencie, the first and current health officers for Manatee County, respectively, as well as a list of all other health officers serving Manatee County during the past 100 years, the DOH said.

“Public health has a long and illustrious history in Manatee County,” Bencie said. “It’s community partnerships from the earliest days forward that continue to make public health across the county even better with each passing year.”

In 2021, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ranked Manatee County the ninth healthiest county out of Florida’s 67 counties. Manatee County ranked 17th in 2020 and 24th in 2019.

“We truly appreciate what the public health department has done and continues to do in partnership with the county to protect and promote good health for all,” Manatee County Administrator Dr. Scott Hopes said.

Project coordinators and researchers used the collections at the Manatee County Library and the Getty Library in Bradenton to create the display.

A second showcase will be hung in the lobby of DOH-Manatee’s main clinic on Sixth Avenue East in February. A video retrospective and accompanying booklet are in the planning stages for production later this year.