Brian Boyce
The Tribune-Star
MARSHALL, ILL. —
The medical community of Marshall celebrated a new home Thursday.
Dozens gathered inside the Cork Medical Center Open House, a Union Health System facility, that evening as staff offered tours.
Dr. Jim Turner said the facility’s roots date back to Dr. George Mitchell and members of the Cork family, who helped grow the small town’s practice of medicine.
“It really is a state-of-the-art building,” he said inside.
Ralph Wagle, president of Garmong Construction Services, said work on the 12,000-square-foot building commenced last October, wrapping up in July. The ground-up project contains 15 exam rooms as well as practice areas for visiting specialists.
Joel Harbaugh, executive director of the Union Hospital Foundation, explained that group paid for the $2.5 million project and will now lease it back to the Cork Medical Center as part of Union Hospital.
Located at 408 N. Second St., the building is near the original site of a group practice launched by Mitchell in 1971, Turner explained. Mitchell’s father also had practiced medicine in Marshall, and when the son returned from service during World War II, he continued that work. Members of the Cork family helped finance the start-up of a medical center there in town sometime prior to that, and the two entities grew together.
Turner, a third-generation Marshall resident himself, began practicing there in his hometown in 1989. Today, four physicians and a nurse practitioner work out of the facility, the only one of its kind in town, he said.
“It’s a significant investment from us to the community,” he said, adding the array of services now offered there.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
