The two-story brick building at 99 Main St. has seen many transformations over its history.

Originally a fish market, it was transformed into The Quigless Clinic by the late Dr. Milton D. Quigless in 1946 before entering its current use as an alternative medicine clinic by one of Quigless' daughters, Carol.

Carol M. Quigless spoke at length about her father, his clinic and the exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of History that he is a part of, entitled "Health and Healing Experiences in North Carolina," as well as her dream for the building that housed her father's practice.

Milton Quigless, a fifth-grade dropout who eventually went back to school and got his medical license, came to Tarboro from Mississippi in 1936 with $7 in his pocket.

"He gave $6 to Mount Zion AME, you know he was tithing, and kept $1 for himself," she said.

Dr. Quigless tried unsuccessfully for 10 years to get certified at the local hospital, Edgecombe General, but found he could not because of segregation and Jim Crow laws, she said.

So, he got a loan, not from a Tarboro bank, Carol Quigless said, but from the People's Bank in Raleigh and started his own clinic. The 26-bed hospital had men's, women's and pediatric wards, as well as a drug dispensary, operating room and OB/GYN ward, among other things.

"This is where I was born and a whole lot of people from Tarboro were born here," she said of the delivery room and OB/GYN ward.

Carol Quigless' younger self was scared of two rooms: the one housing the X-ray machine and the one with the autoclave or sterilizer.

She also had strong memories of the maternity ward.

"I remember this because every once and awhile you'd get someone moaning or screaming," she said.

As she walked through the halls, she pointed out where she or her brother had this or that surgery, tonsils out, appendix out.

"My sister Helen never had any surgeries in this hospital though," she said. "Interesting."

Since there were few schools that would allow blacks, Quigless had to train much of his staff.

"He had to train people here to do the jobs," Quigless said. "He trained nurses to get their RN, on-the-job training."