The Sparks family outreach
Sparks Health System of Fort Smith, the largest medical network in western Arkansas which evolved from the oldest hospital in Arkansas, is being sold to Little Rockbased Baptist Health.
Operating two hospitals with a total of more than 600 beds as well as clinics and outpatient facilities and employing about 2,000 people, the Sparks System provides first-rate medical services to residents of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. And it all grew from a humanitarian impulse among citizens of post-Civil War Fort Smith.
According to J. Fred Patton, author of an interesting history of Fort Smith published in 1992, the hospital now known as Sparks “began in 1887 when a poor, nearly friendless railroad worker’s foot was crushed in an accident.” The worker was moved to his rented room and left. Fortunately Rev. George Degen, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Fort Smith, came to the rescue.
The priest went door to door collecting money from local merchants. The $500 collected was used to rent a space where the injured worker’s foot was amputated by a local doctor without a fee charged. The female parishioners at St. John’s donated linens, furniture, and medical supplies, the first of many contributions women would make to the pioneering hospital.
The new infirmary was named St. John’s Hospital in recognition of the local Episcopal church. A total of 67 patients were treated there during its first year. The hospital quickly outgrew its rented rooms, and after a year it was moved to a larger building on North Second Street. It was incorporated in 1890, with U.S. Federal Judge Isaac Parker serving as its first president.
St. John’s took a major step in 1899 when it merged with a 3-year-old charity hospital, resulting in a move to larger quarters. The combined facility was renamed Belle Point Hospital. It served both white and black patients.
A report for 1902-03 listed 76 “surgical cases, 60 of which were on white and 16 on colored persons; 53 were males and 18 females; 48 adults and 8 children.” The trustees were proud that “Of those cases, 29 were cured, 31 improved, 5 unimproved, and 2 deaths.”
Gynecological cases were reported separately, as were cases involving vision. General medical complaints numbered 131 patients, all but 16 being males. Fourteen patients died. Trustee George Sparks reported that work was underway on a new hospital building.
George Sparks, a prosperous local businessman, served on the hospital board for years, including stints as chairman. Born in Fort Smith in 1848, he was the eldest child born to Mitchell Sparks, an Irish immigrant who with three siblings settled in Fort Smith and quickly became a successful merchant and Indian trader. Mitchell Sparks built the first brick home in Fort Smith for his New England-born wife, Hannah Bennett Sparks.
No family in Arkansas history has had a greater impact than the Sparks clan. Mitchell Sparks’ brother James Henry Sparks settled in Fort Smith in 1849. He established an early insurance agency in Fort Smith, stating his willingness to “take risks on life, limb, dwellings, cargo, and hull.” Mitchell’s son David Bennett Sparks was active in the stagecoach business, had a saddle shop, and served as Fort Smith city clerk. Family members also co-owned the McLoud and Sparks Furniture Co., which in 1900 could not keep up with orders despite working 12-hour days.
James Henry Sparks spent much of his career in the wholesale drug business, though he was also a banker. A 1902 article in the Fort Smith Times reported on the proprietary medicines (more commonly called “patent medicines) manufactured and sold by J.M. Sparks: “His healing medicines, based on the most approved prescriptions and the most careful compounding of drugs, have become household words in thousands of families in Arkansas and the [Indian] territories.” Two of these patent medicines were promoted heavily and became quite popular, “Sparks’ Indian Cough Syrup” and “Sparks’ Tasteless Chill and Fever Tonic.” The fever tonic was reported to “relieve all kinds of fevers,” while the cough syrup was advertised as “a positive and guaranteed cure for every form of throat and lung trouble …”
George T. Sparks started out in the family mercantile business, but he was also an owner or part-owner of a furniture company, the local Fort Smith Light & Traction Co, and the Fort Smith Ice and Cold Storage Co. But his major source of income was the First National Bank.
First National Bank of Fort Smith is one of the oldest banks in Arkansas, dating to February 1872 when it was chartered as the National Bank of Western Arkansas. Logan H. Roots, who served briefly as a Reconstruction congressman from Arkansas, along with Bernard Baer, were the biggest stockholders and principal officers. George T. Sparks joined the bank during its early years, becoming a director in 1875. In 1886 Sparks became president of the bank, a post he held until his untimely death in 1907.
George Sparks died in the sinking of a passenger ship off the coast of California while he and his daughter were on an extended vacation. The daughter, Medora Duval Sparks, survived. Newspaper accounts reported that Sparks had written a new will just before leaving on vacation, noting that this act “was just a part of his methodical business habit of always providing for all possible contingencies.”
Among the generous provisions of Sparks’ will was an unparalleled bequest of $25,000 to Belle Point hospital in memory of his wife, Ann Dibrell Sparks. The grateful hospital board renamed the institution Sparks Memorial Hospital in 1908.