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Naval Hospital Houston On Marlborough Dr.


JHC

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tmariar said:
Here's another 1946 aerial of downtown to complement the one above.

And another.

Another.

A photo of the intersection of Main and McKinney. The empty lot is where the First Presbyterian church (in the background in this Carnegie Library postcard) had stood - it was destroyed by fire in 1932.

A shot looking over the Foley Bros. construction site, and up the 1100 block toward the bayou.

Area around Sam Houston statue.

Area around the (then) new Navy Hospital.

Another 1946 aerial, of a subdivision I can't identify.

Ditto.

Unidentified street/houses.

House/insurance company.

Stretch of ship channel with some residential.

There are a bunch more than what I've posted here, so y'all should look for yourselves. There are so many different random shots - like Jesse Jones and Glenn McCarthy playing cards - the scope is nearly as broad as the Bob Bailey collection.

Thanks. That was my guess, but others know way more about Playland Park than I do.

I enjoyed seeing these photos, especially the one of the old Naval Hospital. I think it had already become a VA hospital when I was a kid in Houston in the late 50's/early 60's. I vaguely recall that it was located to the east of TMC on/along Holcombe. I wonder if any part of this magnificant old structure still exists today?

Thanks for sharing!

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JHC said:
I enjoyed seeing these photos, especially the one of the old Naval Hospital. I think it had already become a VA hospital when I was a kid in Houston in the late 50's/early 60's. I vaguely recall that it was located to the east of TMC on/along Holcombe. I wonder if any part of this magnificant old structure still exists today?

There are some more images here, and I think I saw a copy of the 1949 postcard just now on ebay. The hospital changed to the VA hospital in 1948. Someone else will know more than I do about what happened to the buildings.

Edit:

On September 4, 1946, the U.S. Navy opened its newly constructed hospital on 118 acres of land adjacent to the fledgling Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. At that time, the hospital, completed at a cost of $12 million and consisting of 39 buildings and a patient capacity of 943 beds, was one of the largest and most modern hospitals in the South. Two years earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had issued a memorandum expressing the intention that the Navy hospital in Houston, as well as other specified military hospitals, would be transferred to the Veterans Administration at the end of WWII. Of course, the Navy hospital was not completed until after the war, and the Navy was reluctant to complete construction only to immediately turn its hospital over to another agency. Consummation of this transfer required an executive order from President Harry Truman. The transfer took place at 10:30 A.M. on April 15, 1949. Thus, the Houston VA Hospital was born, although it had been a somewhat difficult birth.

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https://www.va.gov/houston-health-care/about-us/history/

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  • The title was changed to Naval Hospital Houston Texas Medical Center
  • The title was changed to Naval Hospital Houston On Marlborough Dr.

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