The History

In 1920, the City of Okmulgee passed a $250,000 bond issue for city projects, including a new hospital. The Okmulgee Colored Hospital would be located in the heart of the African-American residential community, just blocks from their booming business district. Several of these properties now appear on historical registries. The City Council of Okmulgee expected the African-American citizens to help finance “their own hospital.” Accordingly, the City would “be in charge of the institution at all times” and the hospital’s board of directors “[would] be responsible to the City.” Two years later, Okmulgee’s African-American community raised an additional $25,000 for needed construction costs from federated clubs and local citizens. Oklahoma’s first “colored hospital” was constructed as a two-story, eighteen-room, twenty-five bed institution. The building also included living quarters for the hospital staff nurses. However, the newly constructed hospital remained vacant due to inadequate operational funds.

In 1924, a group of African-American citizens formed the Colored Hospital Association to fund the operational costs and hospital equipment. A prominent African-American attorney in Okmulgee donated one week of hospital fees for indigent residents and local African-American physicians donated surgical instruments and other hospital supplies. Oklahoma’s first African-American hospital officially opened on February 22, 1924. The majority of the hospital’s patients were Creek Freedmen and “state Negroes.” Creek Freedmen were emancipated African-Americans who were slaves of Muscogee Creek tribal members before 1866. State Negroes were African-Americans who were born free people of color. The Okmulgee Colored Hospital exclusively and heroically served African-American patients who were legally and socially separated from mainstream facilities, services and opportunities, including medical care, housing, education, employment and transportation. The Okmulgee Colored Hospital was designed by African-Americans to serve African-Americans. The hospital boasted an African-American governing Board of Directors, superintendent, physicians and nurses. The Okmulgee Colored Hospital provided those admitted to the facility, the dignity and respect that was not offered by other area hospitals. This hospital was one of a few African-American hospitals in the United States and the only dedicated hospital in the state of Oklahoma. The African-American residents of Okmulgee took great pride in their hospital.

The hospital would remain active until 1957 when Okmulgee opened a ward for African-American patients in the basement of the Okmulgee City Hospital. Thereafter and until 1994, the hospital building served the community in various capacities which included: Grey’s Nursing Home, Smith’s Nursing Home, Deep Fork Community Action Foundation, Inc., American Red Cross, Okmulgee County Youth Services and Shelter, Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency Representatives, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Representatives. In 1984, the Okmulgee Colored Hospital was listed on the national Register of Historic Places. This facility was described as “the oldest facility of its type in Oklahoma which remains intact.”