Historic Temple

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Above: The Santa Fe Hospital served
all Santa Fe Railway workers along
the line from Galveston to all points
northward. Founded in 1891, the
hospital soon grew and the railway
built a new red-brick building in 1908.
Wings were added in subsequent
decades. Despite a shaky start, the
hospital soon gained an outstanding
reputation, thanks to its two chief
surgeons, Arthur Carroll Scott, M.D.,
and Raleigh R. White, Jr., M.D.
COURTESY OF THE CANNON/BENOIT COLLECTION.
Below: Begun in 1891 as a hospital
solely for Santa Fe Railway works,
the Santa Fe Hospital touted its fireproof
construction and advanced
medical care when its new building
opened in 1907.
COURTESY OF THE SCOTT & WHITE ARCHIVES.
Opposite, top: Reynolds Drug Store,
11 North Main, featured a soda
fountain, notions, beauty supplies as
well as medications.
COURTESY OF THE CANNON/BENOIT COLLECTION.
Opposite, middle: King’s Daughters
Hospital, founded in 1896 in rented
quarters, evolved into a community
hospital on South Twenty-second
Street. Patients mailed picture
postcards to friends and family
describing their operations. On this
one, someone drew an arrow to the
surgical floor and wrote,” Eldor was
operated in 1916 on appendicitis.”
COURTESY OF THE CANNON/BENOIT COLLECTION.
Voters approved another $75,000 bond issue in
1913 to purchase a sewerage system. The
following years, the water board concentrated on
increasing supply as the city grew with water and
sewer demands. Water treatment improved as state
health regulations enforced more purification.
Another bond election in 1938 added a new
filtration plant about a mile east of downtown.
By the end of the twentieth century, the former
city water department had been transformed into
the Department of Public Works, responsible for a
complex system of water distribution, water
treatment, wastewater/sewer collection, and
drainage. Public Works also became responsible
for street services, traffic signal repair, engineering,
inspections, solid waste service, fleet maintenance
and administration of wastewater treatment.
For the first forty years as the city grew, the
elected city officials also served as
administrators. However, by 1920, Temple had
more than eleven thousand citizens. Voters
approved a home rule form of city government
in 1922, creating commissioners, one of whom
would be mayor, and a professional city
manager, the first being H. J. Graeser.
THE “ HOSPITAL HUB” OF
THE SOUTHWEST
Aware that Temple occupied a central location
in the state and was the juncture of two major rail
lines, local business leaders began as early as 1888
to petition the Santa Fe Railway to relocate its railroad
hospital from Galveston to Temple. Railroad
Opposite, bottom: The 200 block of
North Ninth shows the stately homes
located just a few blocks from the
city’s main business and commercial
area prior to 1910.
COURTESY OF THE CANNON/BENOIT COLLECTION.
26 ✦ HISTORIC TEMPLE