BLUITT, BENJAMIN R.

BLUITT, BENJAMIN R. (1865–1918). Benjamin R. Bluitt, the first black surgeon in Texas, was born in December 1865 in Freestone County, Texas. He grew up and was educated in Limestone County. He continued his education at Wiley College in Marshall and Meharry Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. Before opening a practice in Dallas in 1888 he practiced in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. In 1900 he was living in Dallas with his wife of ten years, Cornelia, his mother, Maria, and a niece. His business office was in the Pythian Temple. Bluitt was an executive committee member of the Negro Business League of Dallas and served as an officer of the first black bank in Dallas, the Penny Savings Bank, and as a trustee at St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church. He opened the first black hospital in Dallas in 1905, the Bluitt Sanitarium, on Commerce Street. As a hobby he raised and trained thoroughbred horses. In 1918 he moved his practice to Chicago, where he died and was buried.