Homan Sanatorium
| Homan Sanatorium | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Opened | 1907 |
| Current Status | Active |
| Building Style | Single Building |
| Location | El Paso, TX |
| Alternate Names |
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History[edit]
The Albert Baldwin Sanatorium was founded by David Gilmore Baldwin and named after his father. David Baldwin had contracted TB and came from New Orleans to El Paso for appropriate care. Seeing an opportunity to serve a growing influx of TB patients, he purchased a suitable site, and construction of his new facility began in 1905. Baldwin contracted physician Charles M. Hendricks to serve as medical director, and new patients were first admitted on May 1, 1907. In 1909 Hendricks resigned his Baldwin Sanatorium position, and David Baldwin agreed in 1910 to lease and later sell the facility to Homan and a partner, Morton McKinney, and change the name to the Homan Sanatorium.
During the first decades of the twentieth century, numerous other sanatoriums opened in El Paso, but by 1924 Homan Sanitarium was at full capacity, and a new, larger facility was needed. Construction began that year on a suitable plot of land at the intersection of Cotton Avenue and Erie Street. The new Homan Sanatorium opened in June 1925. The $200,000, four-story facility boasted the latest amenities, including 104 private rooms, a “call bell” system for nurses, two elevators, a fourth floor “assembly room” for recreation, and a roof garden. The management team consisted of Homan as medical director, Crimen as superintendent, and physicians W. W. Britton and Ralph Homan as associate medical directors. The original Homan Sanatorium on Grand View Drive was sold to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kansas, in 1927, and the name was changed to St. Joseph’s Sanatorium.
From 1925 to 1932 Homan Sanatorium continued to operate successfully under the handshake partnership forged by Homan and Crimen in 1910. With the onset of the Great Depression, however, with sanatorium facilities experiencing declining numbers of patients, the two partners formalized their professional relationship in May 1932 by incorporating as Homan & Crimen, Inc. In 1936 they sold shares of the corporation to raise funds for the purpose of converting the Homan Sanatorium into a general hospital. Shares were sold to Ralph Homan, a cardiologist and the brother of Robert Homan, and to George Turner, a radiologist and clinical pathologist who would serve on the board as well as operate the hospital’s radiology department and diagnostic laboratory. The new facility, with renovations of approximately $50,000 and a capacity of 125 beds, was named Southwestern General Hospital and officially opened to patients on January 31, 1937.
