Enduring Legacy: The M. D. Anderson Foundation and the Texas Medical Center

Chapter 5. Bold Vision: First Steps toward Building a Medical

Chapter 5 Bold Vision First Steps toward Building a Medical Center During the spring of 1942, while the University of Texas board of regents considered the Anderson Foundation’s proposal to locate the state’s new cancer hospital in Houston, the Anderson Foundation trustees began to think seriously about also creating a major medical center. Dr. E. W. Bertner, one of the city’s leading physicians, had long dreamed of creating such a center, a dream also shared by the city’s highest-ranking educator in the health fields, Dr. Frederick C. Elliott, dean of the Texas Dental College. Both of these men were acquainted with the Anderson Foundation trustees and took leading roles as the trustees moved to forge serious plans for their medical center. They knew that the center would need hospitals, a medical school, and more. As they continued to develop their initial plans, their first order of business was to find a temporary location for the cancer hospital and a qualified physician to serve as administrator. Once the cancer hospital was under way, they could look at filling the other needs for the future medical center. By early 1942, with the United States fully involved in World War II, new construction unrelated to the war effort was prohibited, and many items were subject to rationing in order to direct needed resources to support the troops. This meant that the Anderson trustees would have to find an existing building that could be adapted as a cancer hospital, one that would be serviceable until after the war ended and perhaps well beyond, when construction of a new facility could begin. Finding a suitable location might provide additional assurance for the University 84 CHAPTER 5 of Texas to a point where the regents would select Houston over other Texas cities in what had become a fierce competition for the new cancer hospital. One of the Houston sites that held promise was the old, original, 150-bed Jefferson Davis Hospital, built in 1924 at 1101 Elder Street. A new hospital had opened in 1938, and the original building sat empty. “We looked all through that old building,” trustee William Bates recalled years later. “It was a wreck. We decided it would cost too much to remodel it.”The trustees then learned that the late Capt. James A. Baker, a prominent Houston attorney who had died several months earlier, had given his estate to the Rice Institute. The estate, known as The Oaks, was located near downtown at 2310 Baldwin Street. It included a large home, stables, and small outbuildings situated on about six acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. Baker had been a friend of and Houston attorney for businessman William Marsh Rice. After Rice was murdered in New York in 1900, Baker helped to convict the murderers, Rice’s valet and his NewYork City attorney, and prevented a fraudulent will from being probated. Thus, he helped ensure that the Rice fortune, which had grown to almost $10 million, would be directed as Rice intended to establish the Rice Institute in Houston. Baker was the founding chairman of the university’s board of trustees and served on the board from the time of its initial charter in 1891 until his death on August 2, 1941. When the Rice trustees concluded that they had no practical use for the Baker estate, they offered to sell it to the Anderson Foundation for $68,000. The Anderson trustees determined that this was a reasonable price, purchased the property on May 16, 1942, and then turned it over to the University of Texas as a temporary site for the new M. D. Anderson Hospital for Cancer Research. In contrast to Jefferson Davis Hospital, the buildings of the Baker estate were in excellent condition, and the location, just south of downtown, provided convenient access for patients and doctors. Historian James S. Olson, in his history of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, described the grounds as having “carefully manicured shrubs, broad stretches of mowed and edged grass, and large cypress trees tangled in wisteria. The main residence, its brown brick exterior draped in thick ivy, had a basement and two other floors. Behind the main residence, the two-story stable and carriage house could be refitted for research laboratories.”1 85 BOLD VISION Now that the proposed cancer hospital had a temporary home available in Houston and with all indications being that the University...