Bluitt Sanitarium

Little is known about the childhood years of Benjamin R. Bluitt; some sources note his parentage to ex-slaves, Jarriet and Mariah Bonner Bluitt in 1864 in Mexia, county seat of Limestone County, Texas, or in December 1865 in Freestone County, Texas. These discrepancies are likely due to the young doctor’s birth around the end of the Civil War, when birth and death records were seldom kept by African Americans, and when many slave families relocated following emancipation. However, sources agree that Bluitt’s parents were former slaves who relocated to Limestone County when Bluitt was a small child. The family consisted of Benjamin, his parents, two brothers, and a sister – although these siblings’ names are not recorded.  

Bluitt completed at least a primary education in rural Limestone County, although it is not known what school he attended or if he was educated in his home. Limestone County had no established public-school districts until 1888 when the Shady Grove Community School was established for white children in the surrounding areas, so the only options for education for African American children following the Civil War were schools established by the Freedman’s Bureau or those established by church or missionary societies. The Freedman’s Bureau was established by the United States Congress in March 1865 as a branch of the Army. The mission of the Bureau was to provide relief to the thousands of refugees, Black and white, left homeless by the Civil War; to supervise affairs related to newly freed slaves in southern states; and to administer all land abandoned by Confederates or confiscated from them during the war. Aiding freed slaves in organizing schools and ensuring the safety of their teachers was a major responsibility of the Bureau. Following his early education, Bluitt then attended Wiley College in Marshall, Texas; the date of his attendance is not known but it is thought he began his studies there in the early 1880s. 

In the 1880s, Wiley College offered vocational courses as well as college courses. The faculty was originally administered by white missionaries as it was during the time Bluitt attended. It appears that Bluitt received a good education at Wiley, and evidence suggests whatever subjects may have been lacking in his rural county schooling were compensated for at Wiley, preparing him for the vigorous training of medical school. Following graduation from Wiley College, Bluitt attended Meherry Medical Department of Central Tennessee Methodist Episcopal College in Nashville, Tennessee, an institution established by the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1868 – the same organization that founded Wiley College. When Bluitt attended Meherry in the 1880s, the course of study was three years in length with a curriculum that included “anatomy, physiology, chemistry, botany, dissecting, and chemical analysis” in the first year with “surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, surgical anatomy, theory and practice of medicine, histology, microscopy, and medical chemistry” in the second year. Meherry was one of only a few medical colleges for African Americans in the South in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and many of the early African American physicians in Dallas were graduates. Bluitt appears to have graduated from Meherry with the class of 1885 at the age of twenty or twenty-one. 

Dr. Benjamin R. Bluitt came to Dallas in 1888 and started his medical practice that same year. Although he was not the first African American physician to practice in Dallas, Dr. Bluitt was the first African American surgeon in the city, as well as the state. The first mention of Dr. Bluitt in the business listing of the Dallas city directory is in 1889-1890, where he is described as a physician before the address to his practiced is listed. Maria Bluitt is also listed at his home address and in subsequent years she is listed as a nurse; it is possible she was Bluitt’s sister or another relative and lived with the doctor and his wife, Cornelia. Of interest at this time is the Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas, published in 1892, a book containing lists of professions in Dallas County. A list of all physicians in Dallas County is featured, including Dr. Bluitt’s name. What is unusual is that the other names are Anglo physicians and Dr. Bluitt is not identified as African American, this seems to establish Bluitt as a well-respected physician in Dallas. 

Dr. Bluitt purchased the lot at 504 Commerce Street in 1904, and construction began on his building later that year. Known as the Bluitt Building, the structure was occupied by Dr. Bluitt’s medical practice and his tenants: Dr. Marcellus Cooper, attorney Danial Mason (the first African American attorney in Dallas), and Roberts and Roberts. The medical offices were located on the second floor while the third floor housed the sanitarium. Bluitt received his license to operate the sanitarium from the state of Texas under the name “Bluitt’s Sanitarium” in 1906 and advertised as such in the city directories from 1907 onward.  

Bluitt Sanitarium, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40971721.

Bluitt Sanitarium/R.F. Aspley Building, Dallas City Hall. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopment/historicpreservation/Pages/Bluitt-Sanitarium.aspx.

Bridges, Jennifer. Bluitt, Benjamin Rufus (1864–1946), Texas State Historical Association. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bluitt-benjamin-rufus.