{"nrhp_refnum":"05000859","name":"Jefferson Davis Hospital","other_names":["Old Jefferson Davis Hospital","City County Hospital"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1101 Elder","address_restricted":false,"city":"Houston","county":"Harris County","state":"TX","lat":29.769580177000023,"lon":-95.36870930199996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-08-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Health/Medicine","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story Classical Revival hospital building and its associated 1929 power plant at 1101 Elder Street in Houston, Harris County, Texas. The hospital was built in 1924-25 to a design by city architect W.A. Dowdy.","why_significant":"The hospital is significant under Criterion A for health and medicine, as Houston's first consolidated public hospital for indigent care, replacing scattered charity facilities. Under Criterion C it is a good example of early 20th-century hospital design, including screened sleeping porches reflecting the fresh-air treatment movement. The plan and Classical Revival style draw on New England and European hospital models.","narrative":"Jefferson Davis Hospital, at 1101 Elder Street in Houston, is a three-story Classical Revival building of concrete frame and red brick, completed in 1924-25 and joined by a brick power plant in 1929. City architect W.A. Dowdy designed it, and it cost about $400,000. It opened in March 1925 with 240 beds, replacing scattered charity health facilities across the city. The site sits on part of the Old City Cemetery, used from about 1840 to 1870. The hospital reflects early 20th-century ideas about patient care, including screened rear sleeping porches for fresh air and wards placed away from busy public areas. Its basement served African American patients under the segregated system of the time. The building proved too small and was replaced by a new hospital in 1937, after which it housed county health agencies and other tenants before being abandoned in the late 1980s. It was being rehabilitated as apartments when it was listed for its health and architectural importance.","period_of_significance":"1924-1936","architect_builder":"W.A. Dowdy (city architect)","architectural_style":"Classical Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Abandoned in the late 1980s after decades of other uses; at the time of the form it was under rehabilitation for residential apartments using the federal preservation tax credit program.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:23.809144-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/28/9724/40972428/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/05000859.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000859/770d76798f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000859/770d76798f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jefferson_Davis_Hospital_(HDR).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jefferson_Davis_Hospital_(HDR).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40972428","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis_Hospital","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18152640"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/harris-county/jefferson-davis-hospital-05000859/"}