Nazareth Hospital & sanatorium

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The building was  built around 1927.  It was built as the Mineral Wells Clinic Sanitarium by the owners of the Crazy Hotel.  The building was built after a fire on March 15th 1925.  That fire had started a block away in the  Drug store and burned the entire block.  

The building was purchased in 1931 by the Holy Sisters of the Nazareth and turned into a hospital.  These ladies moved into the top floor of the building  to  minister to patients. They started as a staff of six sisters, one Registered Nurse, a janitor and twelve doctors.  They could  care for 304 patients.  They later expanded the staff which allowed them to admit up to 649 patients. This hospital ran 7 days a week on 8 hour shifts for 24 hours a day.   The hospital was in operation until 1956.  In the later years of operation the hospital operated a crematorium behind the facility.  That building is still part of the hospital today. 

This building was laid out as the first floor, which was the  basement.  The Basement was the sanitarium, which also housed the TB, Polio, and mental patients.  The second floor was the entrance/lobby, this floor housed the hospital administration,  planned parenthood and abortion procedure rooms for planned parenthood.  The third floor housed the chapel, the dinning room and some doctor's offices. The forth floor was reported to be the labor and delivery floor.   The fifth floor housed the surgery and X-Ray rooms.  The sixth floor was the nun's living quarters and the and the seventh and final floor was the priest's living quarter's.  

For 20 years after the hospital closed its doors the building was used as and LVN School.   The building was at one time marked as the cities bomb shelter.  I am sure this is because of the bottom floor being somewhat basement like.  As much of a basement that you can have in Texas.  

Up until the 1990's the building was used in one way or another.  It housed city and county offices .

According to historical documents (provided by the Boyce Ditto Public Library) before the Nazareth hospital was built on the land a hotel called the Cliff House Hotel occupied the Land.  The Cliff House Hotel burned and a new hotel was built on this site.  That hotel was the Plateau Hotel.  This hotel later changed its name to the Exchange Hotel.   Those records conflict in that they show that the Exchange hotel was listed as the Mineral Wells Sanitarium.  It is believed that the Exchange Hotel/ Sanitarium was torn down to construct the Mineral Wells Clinic Sanitarium, that later became the Nazareth Hospital.