Ashbel Smith Building
a.k.a. Big Red
914--916 Ave. B, Galveston, TXThe Ashbel Smith Building or "old Red" as it was labeled by medical students, was the first medical school building of the University of Texas. Named for Dr. Ashbel Smith, Surgeon General of the Republic of Texas, the building was used for classrooms, laboratories, and administrative offices.) Dr. Smith had helped in 1873 to reorganize the Galveston Medical College which had been a branch of Soule University at Chappell Hill since 1865. The new school was called the Texas Medical college.
No state medical school existed until the state legislature created the Medical Department of the University of Texas on March 30, 1881. That same year a public vote chose Galveston as the site for the new Medical Department; however, it did not open its doors for ten years. In 1887 John Sealy, a prominent Galveston businessman, and philanthropist offered to provide funds for the erection of a modern hospital. His proposal was accepted and the John Sealy Hospital was erected in 1888 and 1889. With this stimulus, the Medical Department building was then begun so as to work in connection with the hospital. The first appropriation was made by the Texas Legislature in 1888. The next year, 1889, the property was purchased with a $25,000 appropriation. Also in that year, the architect, Nicholas J. Clayton received permission and $150 from the University of Texas for a trip to visit various medical college buildings in other states. Following his tour to Johns Hopkins, the University of Pennsylvania, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the prominent Texas architect submitted his plans for the building. It was officially opened on October 5, 1891, when the first annual session of the School of Medicine convened.
Today "Old Red" houses the Ex-Students Association offices as well as the student book store. In 1968 the Texas State Historical Survey Committee designated it a historic landmark.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.