Jefferson Davis Hospital

Houstonians can see this place from I-45, but don’t try too hard, It’s dangerous around that part of the freeway. The first time I got a glance of it, I knew that I had to see it up close. All of the windows were busted out and the roof looked like it was about to cave in. I thought to myself, “This would be the greatest haunted attraction in the world if only Disney would buy it.” It was weird to see it up close, much different than seeing it from the highway. I felt as if I had been swept away and was standing before an old building in some small town in the northeast. I stood before it feeling it loom above me like it was about to pounce. I felt that the grass patches and decaying pavement around it would rise up and feed me to its hungry mouth-like entrance. It was beautiful as well. Something is wonderful about a structure that once looked so mighty only to have veins of greenery growing up its sides. I imagined what the place might have been like so many years before. It is amazing. I then turned around to see that this was a small little building that watched a wonderful and modern skyline tower above it right before its windows. What a great contrast!

The last time we visited the Jeff Davis, the hospital was in the process of being renovated. The building was being cleaned up, there were new windows, a new roof, even the brick looked new. They were doing a good job. Too bad it wasn’t made into a museum showcasing its history and history of Houston. Maybe in due time…I mean, why did they decide to make it housing for artists? Why not business people (accountants?) who don’t have a comparably vivid and sometimes irrationally wild imagination? If there were any type of people to raise the dead in a place like this, it would be the artist. Just think about the great horror movie that could come out of all of this…or not. Supposedly the Artspace projects create small artistic centers with galleries and coffee shops. That would be cool too, at least the Jefferson Davis Hospital didn’t get demolished.

location

Inside 610 Loop

type of haunt

Haunted Hospital

status

Renovated. Currently artist housing.

Story

The site was possibly used in the 1600′s as a burial site by early English settlements to bury plague victims.
The area was made into the city’s 2nd city cemetary in 1840 and was called “City Cemetary.”
The last person buried in City Cemetary was done so in 1904.
There were approximately 5000-6000 people buried in this area and surrounding areas
The hospital was constructed in 1924.
The only graves that are still on the grounds are those of the Super family, supposedly protected by Mr. Super with a shotgun while the hospital was being constructed.
The hospital was named after the Confederate state’s president so to relieve pressure from angry relatives of confederate soldiers that where also buried on the site.
The hospital’s basement was built above ground so that there would be no further disturbance of possible graves that still laid below the hospital.
The hospital has served many purposes as well…beginning as a charity hospital, and then a venereal disease clinic, juvenile detention ward, drug and alcohol rehab, and lastly as a psychiatric ward.