Clara Driscoll, The Driscoll Foundation and Driscoll Children's Hospital

Before the hospital there was the Alamo. In 1903 Driscoll, in her early twenties, joined the Daughters of the Republic of Texas in a campaign to save the Long Barrack, the old convent beside the church, which merchants owned and had plastered with billboards. In 1905 she paid most of the purchase price herself, and the state later repaid her. National newspapers made her famous. She went on to write a novel, finance a Broadway comic opera, and serve sixteen years as the Texas Democratic party's national committeewoman, elected first in 1922.

What the plaque says

Clara Driscoll, The Driscoll Foundation and Driscoll Children's Hospital CLARA DRISCOLL, A DESCENDANT OF AN EARLY TEXAS COLONIST AND VETERAN, PHILANTHROPIST AND PUBLIC FIGURE, INHERITED HER FAMILY'S LARGE ESTATE WHEN HER BROTHER, ROBERT DRISCOLL, JR., DIED IN 1929. THE ESTATE INCLUDED REAL ESTATE, OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT, RANCH PROPERTIES AND A NUMBER OF OTHER CIVIC ENTERPRISES. EDUCATED IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND ABROAD, CLARA FOLLOWED HER FAMILY'S PHILANTHROPIC INTERESTS WHEN SHE RETURNED TO TEXAS IN 1899. KNOWN AS "THE SAVIOR OF THE ALAMO," CLARA USED HER FAMILY'S FINANCIAL CAPACITIES AND HER POLITICAL CONNECTIONS TO PRESERVE HISTORIC SITES IN TEXAS. SHE SERVED ON THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE AND THE DAUGHTERS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, AND SUPPORTED NUMEROUS CLUBS AND ORGANIZATIONS, INCLUDING THE TEXAS FINE ARTS ASSOCIATION. UNDER CLARA'S DIRECTION, THE FAMILY'S HOLDINGS GREW. SHE BUILT THE ROBERT DRISCOLL HOTEL ON UPPER BROADWAY AND MATCHED DONATIONS TO ESTABLISH THE NAVAL AIR STATION – CORPUS CHRISTI. WHEN CLARA PASSED AWAY ON JULY 17, 1945, SHE LEFT THE FAMILY'S WEALTH TO A FUND FOR THE CREATION OF A CHARITABLE HOSPITAL FOR INDIGENT CHILDREN, ALONG WITH THE CREATION OF THE ROBERT DRISCOLL AND JULIA DRISCOLL AND ROBERT DRISCOLL, JR. FOUNDATION, NAMED FOR HER PARENTS AND BROTHER. THE DRISCOLL FOUNDATION CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OPENED ON FEBRUARY 22, 1953. IN 1970, THE FOUNDATION CHANGED THE HOSPITAL'S STATUS FROM CHARITABLE TO NOT-FOR-PROFIT, ALLOWING MORE PATIENTS THE CARE THAT WAS NEEDED. THE HOSPITAL WAS THE FIRST TO PERFORM AN ORGAN TRANSPLANT AND THE FIRST TO PROVIDE EMERGENCY SERVICES EXCLUSIVELY FOR CHILDREN. OVER THE YEARS, THE HOSPITAL HAS GROWN AND EXPANDED, AND CONTINUES TO PROVIDE CARE FOR CHILDREN AND PATIENTS IN SOUTH TEXAS, JUST AS CLARA ENVISIONED. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 3.3 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 4.3 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 4.5 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 4.6 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Elihu Harrison Ropes — 0.7 mi
• Alta Vista Hotel, Site of — 0.9 mi
• Sisters of the Incarnate Word — 1.0 mi
• First Baptist Church of Corpus Christi — 1.2 mi