At least three infirmaries preceded the first structure built to provide outpatient student health services—the Student Health Services Building on Andy Holt Avenue, completed in 1975. In 1875 the trustees allocated two upper-story rooms in the Janney Building for an infirmary, and the building became commonly referred to as “the infirmary.” In 1923 the former Thackston residence was made into an infirmary, complete with operating room. (Glen C. Belew, a freshman law student died in this infirmary while undergoing a tonsil operation under local anesthetic in April 1927.) In 1928 Weston M. Fulton gave a gift of $50,000 to the university in order to allow the university to purchase his 1927 residence at 820 Temple Avenue (Temple Avenue is now Volunteer Boulevard) and add an infirmary to it to serve as a memorial to his son, Weston Fulton Jr., who had been killed in a car accident in 1928 while a freshman at UT. The university had been leasing the building.
Fulton described the property at the time of the transfer to UT as “a modern, sixteen room residence with seven bath rooms, modern hot water heating system, four car garage, asphalt tennis court, concrete swimming pool, bath houses, filtration plant, and garden.”
The new infirmary in the expanded Fulton residence opened in January 1932, with treatment rooms, operating rooms, and a special room devoted to “radiotherapy”—the treatment of illness by violet ray and infrared ray. Each patient room featured a bathroom and running water and all were connected to a central radio that could be turned off or on at the patient’s discretion. A separate section was reserved for patients with contagious diseases. An expansion of patient space was made in 1944. The new room, on the lower floor, accommodated 15 patients.
The plan had been to close the infirmary when the new UT Hospital was built. But in early 1952, the decision was made to retain the on-campus infirmary, including bed patient space, because of the cut in beds from 500 to 317 at the new hospital and because the location of the new hospital had been removed from the campus. In fall 1966 students requiring in-patient care were sent to UT Hospital, which also assumed responsibility for outpatient treatment in the evenings and at other times the infirmary was closed. At that time the infirmary addition to the Fulton residence was demolished.
When the outpatient Student Health Services Building was completed in 1975, the large bronze sign from the front of the Fulton residence on Volunteer Boulevard indicating that it was the Weston Fulton Memorial Infirmary was moved to the waiting area of the new building, and the Fulton residence building was renovated for occupancy by the Student Counseling Services Center, which had been located in Temple Court. The sign was relocated to the new Student Health Services Building.