Old Providence Hospital

The photograph shows the Old Providence Hospital, probably in the 1910s. Back in those early days there was urgent need for hospital beds in the city. When Dr. Michael Philip Schuster, graduate of the University of Vienna Medical School, conceived the plan of giving El Paso another hospital, citizens thought this was providential. That is where the name Providence for the hospital derives from. Dr. Schuster and Mrs. Schuster arrived in El Paso in 1896. The Providence Hospital Association was formed to buy that first hospital building, which was opened in 1902. Dr. Schuster, principal stockholder, was president of the Association. In the following years additions were made and it was developed into a 40-bed standardized hospital approved by the American College of Surgeons and American Hospital Association. The hospital was the first here to graduate Mexican nurses. From 1902 until April 1, 1946, there was never a break in the Schuster operation of the hospital. When Dr. Schuster died in 1918, Mrs. Schuster took over full management. She was assisted by her daughters, Mrs. Margaret Schuster Meyer and Mrs. Regina Schuster Rabb. When their mother died in August 1946, they carried on. The doctor brothers are Frank and Stephen Schuster. In 1953 the Hospital moved to its new location.