Jefferson Davis Hospital
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This significant medical facility, completed in 1924 and operated jointly by the City of Houston and Harris County, was built atop the 1840 Houston City Cemetery, which was active until the 1880s. As there was no widespread removal of graves from the site, the building’s basement was erected above ground. At the request of Confederate veterans and their families, the hospital was named for the former President of the Confederate States of America, in honor of the many Confederate veterans buried here. Jefferson Davis Hospital marks the beginning of city-county cooperation in providing centralized medical care for indigent patients. City architect W.A. Dowdy presented his plans to the hospital board in 1923, with the main building designed to accommodate 150 patients. The physical plant also included a nurses’ home, isolation unit, garage and power house. The Neoclassical style building remains a prominent landmark in the First Ward neighborhood. The three-story structural concrete and clay tile building has a red brick and cast stone veneer. Notable elements include its central projecting portico with fluted columns and ionic capitals, cast stone detailing, pedimented entry doors and brick corner quoins. The hospital served its intended purpose for only thirteen years, as a rapidly growing population required new facilities. In 1937 a new hospital on Buffalo Drive (now Allen Parkway) took the name “Jefferson Davis Hospital.” This site, then called “Old Jefferson Davis Hospital,” served multiple purposes including a psychiatric hospital, juvenile detention ward, food stamp distribution center and records storage facility. After several years standing vacant, the historic building was rehabilitated into residential lofts in 2005. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2008
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Completed in 1924 and run jointly by the City of Houston and Harris County, this Neoclassical hospital rose atop the 1840 Houston City Cemetery—its basement built above ground because the graves were never removed. At the request of Confederate veterans and their families, it was named for the former Confederate president in honor of the many veterans buried beneath it. Serving indigent patients for just thirteen years, the building later housed a psychiatric ward, a juvenile detention unit, and, since 2005, residential lofts.
Why it matters
The hospital marks the beginning of city-county cooperation in public medical care for the poor, while its name and foundation reveal how deeply Confederate memory was woven into early-twentieth-century Southern civic life.
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Nearby & related markers
1840 Houston City Cemetery
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In 1840 the young City of Houston bought five acres from the Allen brothers to create its first municipal cemetery, then divided it by ordinance into a potter's field, a segregated "negroes burying ground," a commons, and family plots sold to the highest bidder. For some forty years it was the city's only cemetery, receiving citizens of the Republic of Texas, Civil War veterans, and victims of Houston's recurring yellow fever epidemics. Later neglected and built over by Jefferson Davis Hospital in 1924, it still holds thousands of graves though almost nothing marks them above ground.
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