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Clara C. Frye built the first hospital for African Americans in Tampa, Florida in 1907. She ran the hospital for years, never pressing patients to pay. Frye died impoverished on April 8,1936. A pavilion at Tampa General Hospital is named in her honor. Frye was born in Albany, New York in 1872. She worked as a nurse
for seven years before coming to Tampa. She said that she heard
physicians discussing the necessity for a hospital for blacks and
about how many were dying because they were denied medical care. Frye
says one day a doctor told her a patient would die if he didn't
operate. She told him she would prepare a place for the surgery.
Clara Frye went to work and turned a three room house at 1615 Lamar
Avenue in Tampa into a makeshift hospital. Two days later the doctor
operated and removed a tumor from the patient weighing more than nine On May 17, 1930 city officials took over the management of the
Clara Frye Negro Hospital. Dr. A. J. White was appointed
superintendent. But Clara Frye operated it for twenty years before it
was taken over by the city.
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