Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing Building

The Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing is an important landmark in Houston's predominantly black Third Ward. Closely linked with the Houston Negro Hospital, which is also being nominated to the National Register, the school building was built in 1931 with money donated by the well-known Houston oilman and philanthropist J. S. Cullinan. Anxious to help with the education and training of black people in the city, Cullinan gave money for the hospital complex "to promote self-help, to inspire good citizenship and for the relief of suffering, sickness, and disease amongst them." When completed, the school was the city's first residential nursing school for black students. The building is presently in poor condition, but will soon be rehabilitated for use as a neighborhood outpatient facility.

Efforts by Houston's black community to establish a hospital for, and run by, black people were finally realized when the Houston Negro Hospital opened in 1926. An affiliated nursing school was a vital element of this idea, and the school's contributions were three-fold: it helped to provide staff for the hospital, it enabled nursing students to gain valuable experience, and it was an important institution for training black people in the medical profession.

The initial plans for the construction of the Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing date to 1926, when a master plan for the Houston Negro Hospital was developed by project architect Maurice J. Sullivan (1884-1960). Born in Michigan, he was trained as an engineer at the University of Michigan and, upon graduation, came to Houston as the City Architect. In 1919 he established his own firm. The Villa de Matel (1923-28) is one of his most significant architectural accomplishments. The Houston Negro School of Nursing is especially close stylistically to Sullivan's St. Anne's Catholic Church and School (1928-1953) in southwest Houston. His scheme called for the hospital's construction, the initial phase of the project, in 1926 at the northern end of the grounds of the complex-- an area that encompassed an entire city block. The second phase involved the construction of the school of nursing building in 1931. Later phases were to include four other buildings on the east and west sides of the grounds, but all these structures were never built. Funding for the project (the hospital and school) was provided by Joseph S. Cullinan (1860- 1937), founder of the Texas Company (Texaco), although the City of Houston donated the land. When his wife, Lucie Halm Cullinan, died in 1929, he decided to release funds sufficient for the construction of the nursing school and name it in her honor. Cullinan also cited the depressed economic conditions as another factor in his decision to build the school, since many people needed work. West and Jensen, the Contractors, were hired to erect the nursing school, and the cornerstone was laid on March 8, 1931. Costing over $40,000, the building was completed two months later, and the first nurses moved into the structure's dormitory rooms.

In keeping with the original idea for the school, the students were taught and supervised by the staff of the hospital. Unfortunately, few patients have admitted to the hospital during the early 1930s and the existence of both the hospital and the school was threatened by this low occupancy. The hospital was able to regroup and continue, but the nursing school was closed in 1935 by the State Board of Nursing Education. Efforts to establish a cooperative training program with Jefferson Davis Hospital were unsuccessful. Thereafter the school building was used as a dormitory for nurses working at the hospital but ceased to function as a school. By the 1940s the building was vacant and in need of repair. For a brief time after December 1950, it served as a facility for ambulatory cancer patients. This program was run by the M. D. Anderson Hospital, but was short-lived; the patients were transferred to the new M. D. Anderson Hospital building when it was finished in 1955.

For many years the school building was again unoccupied, although the city did use it as a drug-abuse clinic during the 1970s. Current plans for the two-story structure call for its rehabilitation and use as a neighborhood outpatient facility. The school building and the old hospital are being nominated separately because of the addition of a large, one-story wing to the hospital. This addition is intrusive and damages the historic integrity of the complex viewed as a whole.