Two grain silos
and a hundred-acre dairy farm

have been miraculously transformed over the past few decades to a Health Science Center of international renown.

In 1959 Gov. Price Daniel signed House Bill 9, creating The University of Texas South Texas Medical School. Six years later the Joe J. Nix Dairy Farm, a wide expanse of grazing land, cattle pens, milking barns and silos to store cattle feed, was conveyed to the State of Texas to build a medical school (and health science center). On July 12, 1968, the Medical School and Bexar County Teaching Hospital (now University Hospital) were dedicated.

The Medical School was soon joined by the School of Nursing, Dental School, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Allied Health Sciences. In 1972 the Legislature renamed the rapidly growing institution—The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

More structures were built to accommodate the expanding curricula and research interests. The Dolph Briscoe, Jr. Library, one of the largest in the nation, was dedicated in 1985. By 1990 Health Science Center scientists were moving into the UT Institute of Biotechnology where internationally distinguished researchers seek cures for cancer. The next year the Robert F. McDermott Clinical Science Building, home of the $5.3 million positron emission tomography imaging system (PET) and Research Imaging Center (RIC), was dedicated. This year the new Allied Health/Research Building, adjacent to the McDermott building, will be dedicated. In addition, construction will begin on the new South Texas Centers for Biology in Medicine to be located in the Texas Research Park.

Now in its 25th year, the Health Science Center celebrates the thousands of people who have contributed to its rich diversity of accomplishments, the community leaders and citizens whose steadfast support has propelled its growth, and the visionaries who will continue to support the Health Science Center’s position as a world-renowned educational, research and treatment center in the next millennium.

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