CEENTA has had the pleasure of providing eye and ENT care to patients in North and South Carolina for 100 years. During that time, we’ve grown our offices, expanded our services, and made many incredible memories. And it all began with one office in Charlotte.
Our first office on 7th Street
In 1923, Drs. James Matheson, Clarence Peeler, and Henry Sloan, Sr. formed a partnership and opened Charlotte Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital on Seventh Street in modern Uptown Charlotte. This 23-bed facility was the first specialty hospital in the area, offering additional hospital bed space and doctors offices as well as an optical department, laboratory, and operating room.
That same year, Dr. (Honorary) Wendell Roberts, Director of the Laboratory and X-Ray Department, received national attention for inventing a triangulation, or three-dimensional, fluoroscope that helps radiologists and doctors locate foreign bodies on X-Rays. Dr. Al Dorenbusch also pioneered the nasal approach to tear duct surgery in this time period.
The CEET Hospital signed Dr. Beverly Armstrong in 1948, who designs the first tympanostomy tube for middle ear conditions six years later.
Growth and expansion
By 1966, the physician partnership group had outgrown its original Seventh Street facility, and in February of that year the CEET Hospital moved to East Third Street, where the hospital housed 62 beds and three operating suites. Subsequently, the CEET Hospital and Charlotte Eye Ear Nose & Throat Associates became separate but related entities.
Expanding our services into southern Mecklenburg County, CEENTA opened its second office in Pineville in 1985. The 90’s saw the following offices being formed independently or through mergers with other practices:
- 1990: University location
- 1994: Matthews location
- 1997: Monroe location after merging with Laurel Eye Associates
- 1998: Belmont and Rock Hill locations
- 1999: Two offices from Randolph Ear Nose & Throat Associates merge with CEENTA
A new millennium and new opportunities
After the creation of our Huntersville office in 2000, our central administrative hub was built in Charlotte’s SouthPark area. By 2001, both eye and ENT care services were moved to this location and later the SouthPark Surgery Center, with the Third Street office officially closing after thirty-five years as a Queen City mainstay.
Starting in 2005, CEENTA acquired the Iredell Eye Center to create our Statesville office, and the late 2000’s through the 2010’s saw the emergence of our Steele Creek, Mooresville, Albemarle, and Salisbury offices. 2013 also saw CEENTA becoming an official eye and ENT provider for the Carolina Panthers, Charlotte Hornets, and Charlotte Checkers.
Traveling South and returning home
However, our focus on premier eye and ENT care could not be contained to just North Carolina, and we expanded south of the Tar Heel State with our Lancaster office in 2015 and Fort Mill and Rock Hill in later years.
CEENTA was born in the center of Charlotte, so it made sense for us to return to our roots. In 2019, we opened our Uptown office to come full circle from where we started back in 1923.
Today, CEENTA has eighteen offices in the Carolinas, each one featuring award-winning physicians who have decades of experience treating both common and unique eye and ENT disorders. Our growth could not have been possible without the friendly faces who have visited our offices over the decades, and we are forever grateful to provide the communities in and around Charlotte A Century of Care in the Carolinas.
Charlotte Eye Ear Nose & Throat Associates
