page_title: St. Joseph Medical Center (Houston)
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: St. Joseph Medical Center (Houston) / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: 1908 postcard depicting St. Joseph's Infirmary (now St. Joseph Medical Center) in Houston, Texas.
context_page_description: St. Joseph Medical Center is a general acute care hospital in Houston, Texas owned by Steward Health Care. Established in June 1887, SJMC is recognized as the first hospital in Houston. A new hospital was constructed in 1894, but was destroyed by fire soon thereafter. The hospital was rebuilt and it underwent major expansions in 1905 and 1938. The hospital was the largest in the city until the Texas Medical Center was established. The hospital has a capacity of 792 beds. A second location opened in the Houston Heights in 2012.
context_section_description: St. Joseph's Infirmary was founded in 1887 by a Catholic order known as the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The original building was an old frame structure at the corner of Caroline Street and Franklin Street. The year after it was established, the hospital entered into an agreement with the Harris County Commissioners Court to care for the city's indigent patients. The hospital earned a great deal of community support due to the care it provided to victims of an 1891 smallpox outbreak.
  A new facility, larger and made of brick, opened in 1894. The facility was built by architect Nicholas J. Clayton, who also built numerous historic houses and major commercial buildings in Galveston and Houston. The hospital was destroyed a few months later by a fire that started at a nearby boarding house. The fire killed two of the sisters who belonged to the order. All of the patients were kept safe during the fire. A few months after the fire, a new building was completed after the order received monetary donations from Houstonians. The new hospital was located at the corner of Crawford Street and Pierce Street, which is now occupied by one of the hospital's buildings in Downtown Houston. At the time, the site was in a quiet residential area.
  A new three-story brick structure was constructed in 1905. By 1919, St. Joseph was a 350-bed hospital that offered a range of medical and surgical services. The Bishop Byrne Annex was dedicated in 1919.
  In 1920, an article in the Texas State Journal of Medicine mentioned that it had a strong nursing school and characterized the hospital as "an institution second to none in the south".  In 1921, the hospital was listed as one of 12 Texas hospitals with over 100 beds that received Approved Hospital status following a site visit by the American College of Surgeons.
caption: St. Joseph's Infirmary (1908)
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