From the National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form Dated November 26, 1982
Describe the present and original (if known) physical appearance
The building which housed the Houston Negro School of Nursing is a two-story institutional
structure in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. The long arcade on the building's rear
elevation, its central, arched passageway, and its low, red-tiled roof all bespeak this
style. The school building stands on the same block as the Houston Negro Hospital, which
is being nominated separately to the National Register of Historic Places, and is located
at the southeast corner of Holman Avenue and Ennis Street. A covered walkway on the northwest side of the school leads to a one-story, contemporary utility building. Both are in
fair condition and have been changed very little since their completion in 1931. They
will soon be included in a general rehabilitation project for the Riverside General Hospital complex.
The Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing is rectangular in plan, measuring approximately
143 ft . (northwest-southeast) by 24 f t . (northeast-southwest). The northeast side
is the rear, and the front faces Holman Avenue to the southwest. Constructed in 1931 of
reinforced concrete and hollow tiles, the building has a white, stuccoed exterior and
plastered interior walls. The hipped roof features terra-cotta barrel tiles on trussed
wooden rafters and joists. Although it is the "rear" facade, the northeastern wall of the
building is the most detailed and important, since it faces inward towards the central
landscaped core of the school-hospital complex. It displays a symmetrical series of bays
which constitute a series A-BBBB-C-BBBB-A. A prominent passageway pierces the building
at the C-bay, and divides the ground level into separate halves. This central bay exhibits
a large, flattened arch with a wide, undecorated frieze bordered on top by rows of
curved, cast-stone moldings. To each side of the central arch there is, first, a small
rectangular window with iron grillwork, and then an arcaded gallery consisting of five
arches with massive, rectangular piers and wrought-iron railings. The central three piers
of the BBBB-bays of each arcade are marked by a course of horizontal, rectangular cast
stone near the top. No main entrance exists, as most rooms on the ground floor open onto
the arcade. The second floor of the building extends out over the first-floor arcade and
is delineated by a belt course of cast stone. This course serves as a sill for the single
windows above, one of which is situated over each of the arches in the arcade. The windows
are of the wooden, double-casement type and each has four lights.
The side or end elevations of the building display only a modest amount of ornamentation.
Each end wall has a small arch on its northeastern, first-floor corner to provide access
to the rear arcade. The southeast end wall, in addition, has a single second-floor window
which rests upon the belt course or continuous sill. The northwest end wall has two
windows on the ground level, as well as a second-floor window like that of the opposite
elevation. A covered walkway with tile roof and small support piers abuts the northwest
elevation attaching the main building to the one-story utility building.
The front elevation on Holman Avenue features the same central arch as the building's rear.
This opening once served as a gateway to the hospital complex, and to its landscaped
grounds. A cast-stone panel with the name "Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing" can
be seen above the central arch. On the ground floor, this southwest elevation has the
same small, iron-barred windows to right and left of the central arch as are found on the
opposite facade. There is an additional flanking window above each of these first two,
opening onto the central stairwells halfway between the first and second floors. A fifth small window is found directly above the panel that contains the building's name, high on
the second-story wall. A series of five large, single-bay casement windows is found on
each side of the central arch, on both the first and second stories.
Although the interior spaces have been somewhat rearranged, there have been no major
structural alterations. On the first-floor west wing, the lounge with its brick fireplace
with wooden mantelpiece remains, as does the domestic-science classroom and the
matron's room. The first-floor east section has a chemistry lab and classroom. Each
section has a stairway to the upper level located on either side of the first floor passageway.
On the second floor the west section has large dormitory rooms which have been subdivided,
while the east section has five bedrooms that remain unchanged from their original
form. The utility building stands northwest of the school and is attached to its northwest
wall by a breezeway. This one-story structure is rectangular in plan and measures 29 ft .
(northeast-southwest) by 46 ft . (northwest-southeast). Like the school, it has a red-tile,
gabled roof and stuccoed exterior. The utility building, however, displays no noteworthy
ornamentation.
The nursing school stands in a park-like setting on the southern portion of the grounds of
Riverside General Hospital. The area between the school building and the original Houston
Negro Hospital is now occupied by a very large addition to the hospital which is intrusive
and effectively separates the school from the old hospital. For that reason the nursing
school and the original hospital building are being nominated separately to the National
Register of Historic Places. The neighborhood around the school consists primarily of
small, older dwellings, and the substantial structure of the Houston Negro School of
Nursing retains its historic role as a prominent visual landmark.
Statement of Significance
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 out-patient
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 threefold:
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, 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 were 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 out-patient 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.