Dedicated in 1918, Christian Hospital was founded with the assistance of a white woman, Mrs. Clarence Bush, who was unable to get her black maid admitted into the local county-owned hospital now known as Jackson Memorial hospital. At the time, blacks were denied treatment at existing hospital facilities in the Miami area. Mrs. Bush donated $5,000 to a group of black citizens to help construct their own institution in Overtown. Dr. William Sawyer and others in the black community organized Christian Hospital, a 12-bed wooden facility to provide quality medical care for black Miamians. In 1959, a new facility was constructed in Brownsville. The new Christian Hospital was a 50-bed facility with the latest in equipment and furnishings.

Christian Hospital prospered until other previously white-owned facilities were opened to black doctors and patients. When its occupancy rate dropped to 39 percent, Dade’s only black-owned hospital was forced to close in 1982. Numerous attempts to rebuild and reopen were unsuccessful.