The Medical School, History of a Building
HOUSTON—(Jun. 17, 2001)—"A University of Texas medical school in Houston won final approval of the Legislature Saturday after two years of effort by Harris County legislators," the Houston Post reported on May 25, 1969.
The story continued, "The medical school is expected to be built on a site at the Texas Medical Center near Hermann Hospital, which has agreed to serve as the teaching hospital for it."
With the governor's signature, the bill became law on June 13, 1969. An appropriation for the school's initial cost was made effective Sept. 1, 1969. By 1970, the school was operating out of a suite of offices in the Jesse H. Jones Library Building, 1133 M. D. Anderson Blvd. in the Texas Medical Center.
The Medical School Building as flood waters
recede after Tropical Storm Allison, June 2001.
By June 1971 bulldozers were clearing the site adjacent to the library for the Medical School's Phase I construction, a two-story building named the John H. Freeman Building. Construction began in August 1971 to provide 55,000 square feet of classrooms, research labs and office space. The building was occupied a year later in August 1972. Former President George Bush, who was then ambassador to the United Nations, gave the keynote address at the dedication of the Freeman Building on Oct. 28, 1972.
Blueprints for the Medical School building, 6431 Fannin, were being developed as the Freeman Building was under construction. The Medical School building would add 852,000 square feet of research laboratories, classrooms and administrative space and would connect the Freeman Building to Hermann Hospital. Part of the space originally designed as an interior atrium became the Leather Lounge on the ground floor and the gallery on the fifth floor. An athletic facility was built on the eighth floor.
Construction for Phase II began in September 1973. By June 15, 1976, this part of the Medical School building was nearly complete, and the basement was filled with equipment - typewriters, electron microscopes, spectrophotometers, 100 brand-new binocular microscopes.
Then the rain began. When floodwaters reached calf-high on the ground floor, the Medical School staff worked all night to rescue as much equipment as possible by moving it to higher floors.
After the flood, cadavers were moved to the employee lounge of what was then the Prudential Building (now the University of Texas Houston Main Building) at the corner of Fannin and Holcombe Blvd. Faculty and medical students conducted anatomy and histology labs there until the Medical School basement could be dried out and cleaned up.
Phase II construction was completed in March 1977.
Construction for the Medical School's Phase III began in October 1975 and was completed in June 1978.
In February 1984, the Positron Diagnostic and Research Center opened at the Medical School. To produce the short-lived isotopes used in positron imaging, the 6,800-square-foot Cyclotron Facility was constructed on the Fannin Street side of the Medical School.
In August 1985, the Texas Research Institute for Mental Sciences became an administrative unit of the Medical School. Located at 1300 Moursund, several blocks from the Medical School, the 62,000-square-foot facility was renamed the University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute. It houses clinics, offices and research space.
For more information about the Medical School's history, see Conversation with a Medical School by Medical School Assistant Dean for Community Affairs Bryant Boutwell, Dr.P.H., and John P. McGovern, M.D. The book is available for $20 plus tax from the bookstore in the John Freeman Building and for $25 via mail order from the Medical School Office of Community Affairs and Public Education, 6431 Fannin 77030-1503.
— Ina Fried