Some documents and original language from the time period are included on this web page.
1837-1901
1847-1922
1833-1893
1846-1911
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1888-1912
1867-1904
1862-1940
1876-1960
1868-1936
1874-1959
1875-1929
1899-1976
1881-1953
Learn about the people and places that paved the way for Norton West Louisville Hospital.
Visit the historical experience at 28th Street and Garland Avenue (just steps outside Norton West Louisville Hospital’s doors)to meet some of the health care pioneers who practiced in West Louisville.
This historical monument was made possible by a donation in memory of Richard S. Wolf, M.D., to the Norton Children’s Hospital Foundation, from his loving family.
Dr. Wolf was a beloved pediatrician and instrumental leader in building what today is Norton Children’s Hospital. He served as medical director of the hospital from 1983 to 1995 and continued to serve Norton Healthcare with distinction until his death at age 93 on Oct. 17, 2023.
Dr. Wolf was a tireless advocate for children. His passion lay in ensuring health and safety resources were available to all children. He also had a playful side. The iconic “Just for Kids” hot air balloon was Dr. Wolf’s brainchild. In addition, he and his wife, Bert, commissioned artwork for the children’s hospital that kids and adults alike could interact with.
Having spearheaded many well-known community resources outside of the hospital, Dr. Wolf’s legacy reaches far and wide — it’s a legacy of making a place for children to grow and thrive.
Norton Healthcare is proud to memorialize these pioneers with help from and thanks to:
Berea College Special Collections & Archives
Photo of Mary Merritt used with permission
Family of Richard S. Wolf, M.D.Filson Historical Society
Norton Children’s Hospital FoundationNorton Healthcare ArchivesUofL Kornhauser Health Sciences LibraryUofL Libraries Archives & Special Collections
Select an appointment date and time from available spots listed below.
Hearing that Louisville was in great need of doctors who would treat Black people, Dr. Fitzbutler came to Louisville after graduating from University of Michigan, where he was the first Black student to earn a medical degree. As Louisville's first Black doctor, Dr. Fitzbutler maintained a practice and is best known for chartering Louisville National Medical College, which opened in 1888 with the help of two other doctors.
After raising six children, Dr. Henry Fitzbutler's wife, Sarah, graduated from Louisville National Medical College in 1892. She was the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in Kentucky. Dr. Sarah Fitzbutler joined her husband's practice and was known for her work in obstetrics and pediatrics. She also served as a nursing instructor at the college. Often working with no pay, she would care for patients in the city's tenements and back alleys.
Rufus Conrad was a free man well before the Civil War. As a teacher and minister, he came to Louisville in 1879 with his family. While record of his formal medical training is unclear, he was known as a highly respected man who dedicated his life to educating himself and others. It's that passion that led him to join Dr. Fitzbutler's effort to charter Louisville National Medical College, where he also taught. Rufus also was among 12 founding members of the Central Medical Association (of Kentucky).
A soldier and witness to Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, which ended the Civil War, he worked many trades as he slowly chipped away at an education. In 1877, Dr. Burney began practicing medicine and performing surgery in New Albany, Indiana. He played a key role in the creation of Louisville National Medical College, and upon Dr. Henry Fitzbutler's death, took his place as dean until 1906.
From 1909 to 1924, Dr. McIntyre practiced medicine at 929 Walnut St. (now Muhammad Ali Boulevard), in the heart of what was then a booming Black business district. He came from a family of doctors and helped establish Louisville National Medical College. He was a three-term president of the Louisville NAACP, during which time he saw a federal Supreme Court case to end segregation and helped bring justice against a local lynch mob. Dr. McIntyre also served as secretary of the Kentucky Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Association.
In 1888, four medical schools existed in Louisville. None were open to African Americans. Henry Fitzbutler, M.D., secured a charter from the Kentucky legislature to organize Louisville National Medical College as a place that Black students could attend.
The college was initially located at Ninth and Magazine streets, and later moved to Green Street.
The first graduate was a woman. In total, 150 doctors graduated from the college before it was forced to close due to financial difficulties.
Louisville National Medical College became known as one of the best U.S. African American medical colleges and the only one owned and operated entirely by African Americans.
Class valedictorian at what would become Simmons College of Kentucky, and graduate of Louisville National Medical College and Howard University Medical School, she was the first Black woman to pass the medical boards and become a doctor in Kentucky. Dr. Gilbert practiced medicine on Dumesnil Street, taught obstetrics at Louisville National Medical College and was a superintendent of Red Cross Hospital.
Born in 1863, Dr. Whedbee came from an enslaved family. Little is known about what brought him to Louisville from North Carolina or his medical education, but he was a key player in founding Red Cross Hospital, established so that patients could be treated by Black doctors and nurses, who were not allowed to practice in the city's other hospitals.
Dr. Whedbee's wife, Bertha, was a community activist, suffragist, and an original member of the Red Cross Association, which went on to establish Red Cross Hospital. Bertha held leadership roles with the hospital and other medical institutions. Notably, she also became Louisville's first Black policewoman.
A graduate of Louisville National Medical College, Dr. Page served King's Daughters and Sons charitable organization by visiting the “needy sick” in their homes. In one year alone, she made 743 house calls. She also had a medical practice in her home in the California neighborhood of West Louisville. In her later years, Dr. Page was the only Black female physician practicing in Louisville.
In addition to being a Louisville physician, Dr. Lattimore was an organizer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Louisville Urban League. He was involved in many civic organizations, including on a national level. For a time, he headed the National Organization of Negro Physicians.
Dr. Potter was a graduate of State Colored Baptist University, which later became Simmons College of Kentucky. She was a 1907 graduate of Louisville National Medical College, where she later joined the faculty. Dr. Potter practiced medicine out of her home at 532 S. Eighth St., specializing in women's and children's care. She went on to establish the Fraternal Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1922.
“To equip and maintain a sanitarium for the purpose of treating the sick of the race under the observation of their own people and to operate … a training school where women of the race can be educated as professional nurses.”
Red Cross Hospital, not affiliated with the American Red Cross, was started by citizens and the local Red Cross Association. The hospital opened at Sixth and Walnut Street (now Muhammad Ali Boulevard) with four beds and one nurse. It moved to Walnut Street and then South Shelby Street. It was a modest hospital, going many years before it had gas or electricity.
It was the only Kentucky hospital to educate Black nurses from 1904 to 1937.
Born in Berea, Kentucky, Mary was the first registered nurse — of any race — to work in Kentucky. She was initially rejected to volunteer in World War I, as were all Black nurses. When the influenza epidemic struck, she volunteered to care for ailing Black soldiers at Camp Taylor. For that, President Woodrow Wilson granted Mary a certificate of merit for her service during the war.
Mary served as superintendent of nurses at Red Cross Hospital from 1911 to 1944. She spent most of her career there as a nurse educator, leading a training program for Black women to become nurses.
A “guiding spirit ... and chief inspiration” of Red Cross Hospital
1904-1998
A native of Louisiana, Jesse B. Bell, M.D., graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and then Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1931. He first practiced medicine in Frankfort, Kentucky, where he contracted tuberculosis. He recovered at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, which led him to devote his medical career to public health, focusing on lung ailments and public access to care. In 1935, Dr. Bell became one of the first Black physicians to work at Waverly Hills.
Dr. Bell went on to work with the Health Department of Louisville to improve access for the Black community, was the first Black physician with staff privileges at Jewish Hospital in 1958 and in 1980 became the first Black president of the Jewish Hospital medical staff. Through Dr. Bell's practice and lobbying efforts, Jewish and other local hospitals began to accept African American patients and grant hospital privileges to other African American doctors.
Dr. Bell was medical director of Red Cross Hospital (1942 to 1946), opened a private practice in 1947 and was the first African American named to the University of Louisville Board of Overseers in 1965.
Dr. Bell was involved in many community and state organizations to help improve the health and education of children and families. He began the first program in Kentucky to screen minorities and residents of low-income communities for high blood pressure.
Dr. Bell was a member of the American College of Chest Physicians, the Kentucky Thoracic Society, Bureau of Health Services for Kentucky and the Ursuline College Advisory Committee. He also was a member of the Falls City Medical Society and Jefferson County Medical Society, and was past president of the American Heart Association of Louisville and Jefferson County. As chair of the Kentucky Commission on Higher Education, Dr. Bell was the first African American to head a state board or commission, championing the community college system. He was a member of the Louisville NAACP, vice chair of the Louisville Urban League and a founding member of 100 Black Men of Louisville.
In 1980, Dr. Bell was appointed to the American Lung Association Hall of Fame and, in 1983, received the Louis B. Russell Jr. Award from the American Heart Association for outstanding service for minority health programs in Kentucky.
1917-1972
A native of Tennessee, Mildred F. Edwards, DDS, aspired to become a nurse, but while attending LeMoyne College in Memphis, her family dentist insisted she learn his trade. After graduating in 1937, she attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville to study dentistry. Upon earning her dentistry degree in 1941, she moved to Louisville to become a partner in the dental office of Dr. P. O. Sweeney at 540 W. Walnut St. Dr. Edwards was the only Black female dentist practicing in Louisville — and Kentucky — for many years.
Dr. Edwards also practiced part time in Louisville's first dental clinic for African Americans at Central Louisville Health Center in the Beecher Terrace housing project. The clinic was operated by the City-County Board of Health, and Dr. Edwards was one of a dozen dentists who donated their services three mornings a week for schoolchildren and expectant women.
At the time of her death in 1972, Dr. Edwards had practiced dentistry for 31 years and was the head dentist at the Frankfort State Hospital and School. She was a member of Falls City Medical Society and Louisville Urban League.
1921-2005
Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Roscoe C. Bryant Jr., M.D., moved his young family to Louisville in 1947 so he could join the staff of Red Cross Hospital. At that time, it was the only hospital where Black physicians could practice. Dr. Bryant also opened a private practice at 719 W. Walnut St.
He was a graduate of Fisk University and Meharry Medical College, both in Nashville, Tennessee, and completed his internship at Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dr. Bryant was part of a decades-long battle fought by Black physicians of Falls City Medical Society to join Jefferson County Medical Society (JCMS). Membership in JCMS was a requirement for physicians to have staff privileges at local hospitals. In those years, membership was given to white physicians only.
On Jan. 19, 1948, JCMS removed its “white only” membership requirement. Shortly after, Dr. Bryant and two other physicians applied for membership. Five months later, JCMS voted to reject the bylaw change and reinstated the “white only” mandate. It was not until 1953 that Dr. Bryant's colleague Maurice Rabb Sr., M.D., succeeded in becoming the first Black physician to join JCMS after it changed its constitution to allow Black physicians to become eligible for membership. This helped desegregate hospital staffs and allowed Black physicians to join the American Medical Association.
Dr. Bryant served as physician at Central State Hospital and the Well Baby Clinic of the Louisville Board of Health. He later treated patients at Park DuValle Health Center.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Dr. Bryant posted bail for demonstrators jailed after protesting for public accommodations and open housing. He also frequently visited local classrooms to discuss medical careers and the importance of education. Dr. Bryant was a member of Falls City Medical Society and the National Medical Association and was a life member of the NAACP.
While serving patients in West Louisville for nearly 50 years, Dr. Bryant delivered generations of babies, never turned away patients for an inability to pay, and was well known for his extensive medical knowledge and compassionate bedside manner.
Dr. Bryant was the first Black physician appointed to serve on the Louisville/Jefferson County Board of Health and the Louisville Zoological Board. In 2004, he was honored with the naming of the Dr. Roscoe C. Bryant Holistic Wellness Center at the Stephen Foster Senior Living community in Louisville. He also was a veteran of World War II.