DUANE
Duane's take
The marker's the word on this one, and here's how Duane reads it to you. Now, tuberculosis — TB — goes by another name you might've heard your grandparents whisper: consumption. It dates all the way back to antiquity, and by the 1800s it was still running at epidemic levels, with medicine offering sufferers exactly nothing in the way of a cure.
Nothing. You just hoped, and you waited, and more often than not, the disease did what it intended to do. Corpus Christi and Nueces County had a problem.
They had TB cases and no dedicated place to treat them. So somebody had to get organized — and that somebody turned out to be a group of women who decided they'd had enough of waiting. In the early 1930s, Mrs.
Fannie Weil Alexander, the Red Cross chairman of Nueces County, joined up with a group of interested women from the American Association of University Women — the AAUW — and they got to work. They inaugurated tuberculin testing among the city's school children. They established the Nueces County Tuberculosis Association.
And they convinced the city to hire a public health nurse. Three big moves, and they were just gettin' started. With the help of Mrs.
H.E. Butt, the association founded the Nueces County Tuberculosis Clinic on Caldwell Street and employed a woman named Elsie Wolle to make house calls. Think about that for a moment — going door to door, case by case, in a city where TB was spreading and the medicine cabinet was largely bare.
And as Elsie and the association kept finding cases, the numbers grew. The clinic on Caldwell Street wasn't going to hold. So the community acquired a site on Leopard Street — five acres and a small house sitting up on a hill.
That hilltop would give the place its name. The entire community pitched in: staff, equipment, supplies. People showed up for this.
But here's the thing about community goodwill — it can fill a building with heart and still not fix the walls. The Hilltop Sanatorium kept suffering from overcrowding. At its core, it was basically a collection of one-room shacks joined together with screened porches.
That's not a facility. That's a patchwork, and everybody knew it. In 1949, a bond election passed to build something worthy of the people it was meant to serve.
And in May 1953, a new six-wing hospital opened — one hundred beds, fully staffed. Hilltop had finally become what the community always meant for it to be. Then medicine caught up.
More effective treatments became available, patient numbers began to drop, and with a free State TB Hospital operating down in Harlingen, Nueces County made the call. In 1968, they closed Hilltop's doors. Over the years, the old hospital was renovated into community meeting rooms — which means that hilltop on Leopard Street is still, in its way, doing what it always did: bringing people together.
What the marker says
The Hilltop Tuberculosis Sanatorium was the answer to Corpus Christi and Nueces County residents in need of a dedicated treatment facility for tuberculosis (TB). Known as consumption, TB dates to antiquity and remains endemic in much of the world. In the 1800s, TB was still at the epidemic level and medicine had no cure to offer sufferers. In the early 1930s, Mrs. Fannie Weil Alexander, the Red Cross chairman of Nueces County, and a group of interested women from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) inaugurated tuberculin testing among the city's school children, established the Nueces County Tuberculosis Association and convinced the city to hire a public health nurse. The association, with the help of Mrs. H.E. Butt, founded the Nueces County Tuberculosis Clinic on Caldwell St. and employed Elsie Wolle to make house calls. As more cases of TB were found, larger quarters were needed. A site on Leopard St. was acquired with five acres and a small house on a hill. The entire community helped stock the sanatorium with staff, equipment and supplies. Despite community support, the Hilltop Sanatorium continued to suffer from overcrowding and was basically a collection of one-room shacks joined together with screened porches. In 1949, a bond election passed to build a new facility. A new, six-wing hospital with 100 beds opened in May 1953, fully staffed. As more effective treatments became available, patient numbers at Hilltop began to drop. With a free, State TB Hospital in Harlingen, the County closed Hilltop in 1968. Over the years, the former hospital was renovated into community meeting rooms.