The hospital's precursor institution was a small hospital and training school for nurses founded in 1902 by Dr. John Edward Perry.[3] In 1910, it was located at 1214 Vine, named Perry Sanitarium and Nurse Training Association.[4]
On June 1, 1918, after an extensive fundraiser campaign yielding US$25,000 (equivalent to about $506,000 in 2023), the facility was relocated to an existing building at 1826 Forest Avenue. Having been built in 1903 as St. Joseph's Parochial School, that building was renamed Wheatley-Provident Hospital and repurposed as Kansas City's first hospital for Black people. It was led by Dr. Perry and his wife Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry, who was the daughter of Rosetta Douglass and granddaughter of Frederick Douglass.[5]
A children's wing was added in 1925. By 1971, 50,000 patients had been served, and the hospital was closed 1972.[4]
It entered the Kansas City Register of Historic Places in 2007[5] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 2020.[6][7] The property became owned by an absentee landlord, and was declared a hazardous building and threatened with demolition by 2017. The historic building was saved from destruction and rehabilitation began in 2021.[8] The owner is 1826 Forest Re Holdings LLC, which is rehabilitating the property into office space, preferably for tenants in the medical field for consistency with its heritage.
