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This is the well-known Gorgas Administration Building located on
the University of Texas Brownsville/Texas Southmost College
campus.
Although the hospital was occupied by 1 May 1869,
it was not completed until 1871.
It
took 1,800 mules, 1,300 civilian employees, and over one
million bricks to build the Post Hospital for the Army post.
The architectural firm of Bell, Klein and Hoffman, in their
Preservation Master Plan for the Old Fort Brown Buildings
(1981), observed that three additions appeared to have
been made to the hospital. These additions included the two-story tower adjoined to the east wing by a one-story infill and
the two-story blocks at the rear. However, a 1869 map shows a
“T” form representing the hospital which might indicate that
only the far rear block was not present.
Post Inventory and Post Engineers Records of
Buildings in Fort Brown are fairly detailed records of
expenditures made to repair or upgrade post buildings that include photographs and floor plans. Every building has a
numbered designation. The Post Hospital is Building No. 83 and
its walls have a thickness of twelve inches. Sections will,
hereupon, be referenced to by letters A through G to denote each
section of Gorgas Hall (see floor plan) Section A, the west wing
nearest May Street and C, the opposite wing to the east, were
the main wards of the building. A 1962 article in The
Brownsville Herald stated that Fort Brown assistant surgeon
William J. Wilson reported in 1870 that the hospital had
accommodations for twenty-four beds. By 1938 three offices and
the dispensary occupied the floor. Two rooms near the front
entrance were used by orderlies, with a surgery office and
dispensary to the rear by 1941. The second floor of section B
was divided into separate wards for officers and prisoners with
a single 13’ x 13’ holding cell.
Photographs by Robert Runyon during the early
1900s show that Section D, now an office for Administration and
Partnership Affairs, was an open-arched passageway during the
early 1900s. Quartermasters' records from 1921 to 1941 list
this section as being divided into an x-ray and operating room,
with the first floor of the connected Section E divided into a
sterilization room, x-ray dark room (with a boiler room inserted
in between by 1938), and operating room in front. In 1936,
the second
floor included a pathology lab, but was used exclusively
as the dentist’s office with two operating rooms, various small
rooms, and a waiting room thereafter. The first floor of Section
F behind the main central block was a 12’ x 31’ dining area, with
an obstetrical ward on the second floor. At the rear (Section
G) were the kitchen and store rooms on the first floor, with a
day room and toilet on the second floor. Sections D, E, and G
probably existed by 1871.
In 1976, Ruby A. Wooldridge, best remembered for
teaching at Texas Southmost College and her book,
Brownsville: A Pictorial History with Robert B. Vezzetti in
1982, stated in an unpublished history of Texas Southmost
College that Brownsville Junior College (later TSC) made major
renovations in September 1948, and the post hospital building was
converted to house:
The science laboratories, art department, college
library, permanent offices of the Dean and registry, science
lecture rooms, office of the superintendent of the grounds,
journalism department and the faculty lounge. The room on the
second floor of the former hospital, which had been used by the
army for confining violent patients, was used jointly by the
Junior College and the Brownsville Historical Society for the
storage of rare books and documents.
A 1949 Sanborn Map indicates sections A and G were used as
classrooms, B as offices, C as a library, and E as study rooms.
A 1971 TSC Bulletin states the “Gorgas Science Center” was remodeled to include three biology laboratories [in
sections C and E] with imminent plans for Science, Mathematics, and
Engineering labs. By 1972, Gorgas was mainly an
administrative building with the completion of Eidman Hall as a
science building By 1981, Gorgas housed the Offices of the
President and Vice-President, Registrar’s, Veteran’s Affairs,
Business and the Counseling Center.
The task of keeping Gorgas (and other historical
buildings) in pristine condition has been tested by time and
trial. Although remodeling the interiors suited academic needs,
undoing the mistakes of well-intended caretakers and the
elements of nature began a program of continual restoration
efforts of upkeep of the buildings. By 1991, the retransformation
of old buildings was complete, thanks to a 1986 $13.5 million
bond issue approved by voters to boost the college’s growth and
rescue historical buildings from further debilitation. TSC was
presented with a plaque by the Brownsville Historical
Association for its efforts to preserve historic fort buildings
and for making the Post Hospital a National Historic Landmark in Texas
Nearly every building on campus is enhanced by
arches of one form or another. Architectural features
that stem from Gorgas Hall give UTB/TSC an unprecedented
uniqueness among other colleges. In 1993, the Architecture and
Design Review of Houston magazine included a booklet, “On the
Border: An Architectural Tour,” featuring Brownsville buildings
in which the design of the Gorgas building was noted for its
“brick arches, brick pilasters and brick corbeling at the roof
line -- [as being] redolent of the Creole architectural
tradition of Northeastern Mexico.”
This section of the Post Hospital will be
finalized by retelling a story from the Brownsville Herald
about Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, beginning with his thirty-year battle at the age of twenty-seven against Yellow Fever,
Yellow Jack, or vomito negro as it was known in Mexico.
He arrived at Fort Brown in 1882, amidst the epidemic which
overtook its victims with body aches, fever, and nausea that
induced black vomit. Freshly dug graves stood open and ready to
swallow another victim and their belongings. The dreaded
disease was known to have “wiped out entire armies and thousands
of civilians in tropical climates in the western hemisphere.”
One case involved the invading American Army of Vera Cruz,
Mexico, in 1846 and another, when the Spanish Army was rendered
impotent by Yellow Fever in its attempts to suppress Cuban
insurrectionists in the 1890s. A “study” suggested that
Spanish Conquistadors brought it over with African Negroes. In
Brownsville, some blamed carriers to have been railroad workers
from Tampico or seamen from New Orleans. Lieutenant Gorgas was
instructed by his colleagues to carry whiskey, brandy, mustard
seed and cigars to help ward off the disease as no cure was
known. Also unknown was that the mosquito was to blame for
carrying the virus. It was thought the disease was transmitted
through personal contact, filth from streets or marshes, or the
putrid odor in the atmosphere that rose from this filth. Gorgas
began dissecting bodies in the “dead house,” as the Old Morgue
was then called, to study the cause of Yellow Fever. He had
been ordered to stay away from patients and was briefly arrested
for disobeying those orders.
Because it was not known how the fever spread, a
Yellow Fever doctor was also relegated to being undertaker,
grave digger and clergyman. One night, following his experience
at Fort Brown, Dr. Gorgas described to colleagues at Fort
Barranca, Florida, the horrible details of what is was like to
dig a grave, wrap a corpse in a white shroud, add quick lime to
an empty coffin before placing the corpse within it, the
internment “and the reading of the burial service by the light
of a lantern.” One cannot imagine what went through his mind
when one day as he looked into an open grave of the National
Cemetery on the island and was asked by another doctor to read a
burial service for Miss Marie Cook Doughty, whose drawn-out,
fifteen-day illness made it seem as her time would come very
quickly. He agreed, too, but continued to treat her.
To Miss Doughty, he was the “Gorgeous Doctor” and
when he would come visit her in the cool dark of night, she
could hardly see his face, but was lulled by the “musical tones
of his voice and his soft southern accent.” His treatment of
her and subsequent illness beside her resulted in a lifelong
partnership in which she accompanied him in his pursuit to stamp out Yellow Jack for good. Both became immune following their
recovery and when it was theorized that the stegomyia mosquito
was the enemy, Dr. Gorgas began warfare to eradicate the mosquito. Some of
his quarantine methods included the elimination of stagnant
water, the insects’ breeding grounds, and fumigation techniques.
Oil was also poured into marshes. His campaign against the
epidemic took him to Panama where the construction of the canal
had been interrupted by the disease. By 1914, he was
appointed Surgeon General of the Army. While in London in 1920
to meet King George V, Dr. Gorgas had a cerebral hemorrhage. The king visited
him in the hospital and at length expressed his sincere
appreciation for the work he did for humanity. Gorgas died on
July 4, 1920, and is credited with proving the mosquito carried
the disease and finding ways to eliminate it. His efforts
virtually eliminated
yellow fever. A memorial plaque was placed on the Fort Brown
hospital building presented in a ceremony by the Brownsville
Historical Association (BHA) and Brownsville Junior College to
commemorate Gorgas in February, 1949. Later that same year the BHA, in conjunction with other organizations,
were able to have Gorgas
elected to the Hall of Fame. Gorgas Drive and the TSC’s Gorgas Science Foundation also bear the name of the
doctor.
Its arches, pilasters, denticulated cornices, and other
decorative brickwork are the result of innovative building
practices imported from Spain to Mexico that made their
way into architecture along the Rio Grande River. The
drawing below exemplifies the architectural elements that make
this building much more remarkable then what it might have been
if it had not been altered from standard Army
building plans by
William A. Wainwright and Samuel W. Brooks.
Read
more about Gorgas Hall in “The Ghosts of Fort Brown” |
