Brewster Hospital opened in 1901, in this structure, circa 1885, as part of the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church to provide education and vocational training for African Americans at the end of the Civil War. The hospital was constructed with donations from Matilda Brewster of Connecticut and was named for her late husband, minister George A. Brewster.

Brewster Hospital and Nurse Training School grew out of the Boylan Industrial Home and School’s nurse-training courses. With 2 cots, a table, and a few chairs, 18 girls who paid $0.50 tuition were taught by Miss Iowa Benson and volunteer physicians. Students traveled from as far away as New York to attend as there were so few vocational schools for Black students. While students received hands-on training with home visits, their value was realized with the Great Fire of 1901. The school was three blocks from the source of the fire and became a makeshift hospital that held 75 patients, all treated by nursing students. Brewster Hospital outgrew this structure and relocated in 1910. This structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 13, 1976.

Brewster Hospital was Florida’s first all-Black hospital where Black physicians treated Black patients and was the only hospital in Jacksonville that treated African Americans until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Brewster Hospital closed in September of 1966 due to rising costs of medical care and patients seeking more modern care from integrated hospitals.