Watts Hospital - History

History

Watts was established in 1895, on land donated by George Watts with an endowment of $50,000, provided solely by Watts. The land fronted on West Main Street with Guess Road (later renamed Buchanan Blvd.) to the west and Watts Street to the east. By 1909, the 22-bed hospital was insufficient for the explosive growth of Durham, and new, larger facility was built on 25 acres (10.1 ha) at the intersection of Club Boulevard and Broad Street, where the hospital remained until it closed in 1976. Watts donated another $500,000 for the new hospital site, designed by Boston architect Bertand E. Taylor in the Spanish Mission style. The hospital was enlarged in 1926 with the Valinda Beale Watts Pavilion, designed by the local architectural firm of Atwood and Nash.

In 1950, Brenda Joy (née Barksdale) Jones was born at Watts. Jones has gone on to fame as president of several prominent organizations in North Carolina, including Hemrocallis Club. She pushed legislation to make Watts a historic site or a school in the 1970s.

By the early 1960s, Watts had begun admitting black patients on a limited basis, constrained by its limited size. A 1966 referendum to fund a new, larger and integrated Watts Hospital was defeated by Durham voters, opposed by both whites and blacks, who feared that the new hospital would cater to whites, while blacks would be treated in the outmoded 1909 facility.

A second referendum, in 1968, which more clearly delineated that Watts and Lincoln hospitals would become extended care facilities when the new Durham County General Hospital opened its doors in 1976. The referendum passed, though Watts was ultimately closed in favor of an enlarged Lincoln Community Health Center.

In September 1980, the first class of high school students moved into the deserted Watts Hospital buildings as the campus began a new life as the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM), a boarding school for academically talented students from all over North Carolina. The old Spanish Mission style buildings were restored, while new, architecturally harmonious buildings were added. In one of the Durham's best examples of adaptive reuse, old Watts Hospital now thrives as NCSSM and serves to anchor the Watts Hospital-Hillandale Neighborhood which was designated a National Historic Neighborhood District in 1998.