Seton Infirmary, Austin - Historical Notes

A chapter in Austin's medical history is about to come to close as the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who have been involved in Austin's hospital community for over a century, announced they will depart the city for new assignments next year.  The nuns first arrived in Austin to run the Seton Infirmary, which was chartered by the State of Texas in 1900 and opened in 1902.  As the Infirmary has been a topic of my past research, I thought I'd write up a little something on it to mark this end of an era.

The original Seton Infirmary (named for the founder of their order, St. Elizabeth Seton) was a four-story red brick building located on 26th Street between Nueces and Rio Grande Streets, in what is now the West Campus neighborhood.  The site can be seen slightly northwest of the university in this 1919 map of Austin in the collection of the Texas State Library.  It was designed by St. Louis architect Rockwell Milligan in the "Southern Colonial" style.  When first opened, it contained 40 beds, although that was expanded to 75 beds by 1914.  The top floor served as a nursing school.  It was demolished in 1975 when Seton's base of operations moved to its current location on West 38th Street.

My interest in the Seton Infirmary's original location began when I located the death certificate of my great-great grandfather, William Woodson Wright (Jr.), who died in the Seton Infirmary in 1920.  I was surprised to learn he had died in the capital and not at his ranch in South Texas, as I had previously believed.  I was able to determine through my research into its location that the building was no longer in existence, but also uncovered something else relevant to my research in the history of Seton Infirmary.  The following is a photograph of the doctors who were on the hospital's staff in 1923.  I've marked out two doctors in particular who are of interest to me.  In blue is Dr. Zachary Thomson Scott, who was great-great grandpa Wright's attending physician at Seton.  Dr. Scott was also the father of Hollywood actor Zach Scott, whose name lives on in Austin in a street and a theatre company.  In green is a cousin of mine, Dr. William Elliott Watt.  The Watts have quite a lot of history in Texas, and I intend to write a post on them at a later date.

Although the Seton Infirmary is long gone and the nuns who founded it will be gone in a year, their legacies live on in the Seton Healthcare Family, the largest network of hospitals in Austin.

Sources/Credits:

Postcard of the Seton Infirmary: Vincentiana Collection - Postcards, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University Library; Chicago, IL, USA 60614

The City of Austin and Suburbs / 1919 (map); Texas State Archives Map Number 0926

Seton Infirmary doctors: Ellison Photo Co.. [Seton Infirmary doctors], Photograph, 1923; digital image, (accessed October 03, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History; crediting Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, Austin, Texas.

Seton Healthcare Family, "About Seton: History and Heritage - Central Texas"