Dr. Colonel Bertram (C. B.) Fuller

When Fuller joined the Texas Medical Association in 1955 he stepped through a door the association had kept closed by its own rules: an 1893 amendment let in women physicians but not Black doctors, and the racial ban was lifted only in 1955. In Wichita Falls he had already become, in 1948, the first Black physician with doctor-patient privileges at Wichita General Hospital. His practice was on the east side, the neighborhood around Flood Street, where Black residents had schools, a theater and a hotel of their own.

What the plaque says

Dr. Colonel Bertram (C. B.) Fuller Born in 1920 in the east Texas town of Terrell, Colonel Bertram Fuller attended Wiley College in Marshall. Dr. Fuller then earned his medical degree in 1947 at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, the first medical school in the south for African Americans. He interned at Hubbard Hospital in Nashville and did advanced study at the University of Texas, University of Colorado and the University of Oklahoma. In 1937, he married Mildred McNairy in Kaufman, and together they had three children. Following service as a physician in the Army Medical Corps, Dr. Fuller established a practice in Wichita Falls' east side in 1948. Dr. Fuller was able to admit patients, despite their ethnic background, to the local city-county hospital, Wichita General Hospital. A separate floor on the west end, known as the Black Wing, was set aside for African American patients. A large broom closet was converted into a nursery for the children delivered by Dr. Fuller. At this time, African American physicians were not allowed admission to the Texas Medical Association (TMA). However, in 1955, the racial membership requirement was revoked and Dr. Fuller became the first African American physician admitted to TMA. Along with this honor, Dr. Fuller also was the first African American physician elected to membership in the American Academy of Family Physicians. He served on U.S. District Court Judge Sarah T. Hughes' Biracial Committee on Schools and was elected in 1970 as President of the Wichita General Hospital Medical staff. In 1988, he received the Wichita County Medical Society's Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Fuller died in 1994 at the age of 74 but will be remembered for his courage and determination to provide quality medical care to all. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.6 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Kell House Museum — 1.1 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Anne Elizabeth Davis Roark — steps away
• Athletic Park / Spudder Park — 0.4 mi
• Site of St. James Hotel — 0.6 mi
• The Zale Legacy — 0.6 mi