Displayed in the Gann Museum’s front room are Dr. Dewell Gann’s artifacts and information about his life. Artifacts in the museum include his medical books and desk. The office is set up like his office was when he was seeing patients in the Gann building.
Dewell Gann Sr. was born on March 31, 1859, near Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated with a medical degree from Southern Medical College and married Martha Harding Whitthorne in 1889. After they were married, they relocated to Benton, Arkansas, where he practiced medicine. Dr. Gann Sr. organized the first Medical Society of Saline County in 1903. The museum was his doctor’s office; the first room was the waiting area and the second room was the examination room. When patients could not afford to pay Doctor Gann for his services, they helped to build the building, which is now the Gann Museum. The back half of the museum was not built until years later.
Dr. and Mrs. Gann had a son, Dr. Dewell Gann Jr., born in 1890, who would also practice medicine and invent the lung resuscitator.
Dr. Gann Sr. passed away in 1945. Dr. Gann Jr. donated his father’s office, which would eventually become the Gann Museum of Saline County.
