Historic Temple

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With the completion of the interstate
highway system, Temple could still
capitalize on its central location to
emerge as a major trucking and
transportation center. This photo
shows Interstate 35 in the late 1960s
approaching from the north.
COURTESY OF THE TEMPLE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
capitalized on its solid reputation for medicine,
medical education and agricultural research. With
the authorization of the state legislature in 2003,
Temple voters created the Temple Health and
Bioscience District. The first such district
established in Texas, the district is devoted to the
development and creation of health and
bioscience/biotechnology opportunities by
forming partnerships with government and
private-sector researchers. The net result has been
a dramatic increase in research funds flowing to
the city and creation of an attractive area to draw
biomedical researchers to Central Texas.
Population trends reflected the city’s prosperity.
The city’s population had risen to 42,483 by 1980
and to 49,851 by 1990, then to 54,514 by 2000.
The Killeen-Temple metropolitan statistical area
reported a population of 255,301 in 1990. That
figure had grown to 312,952 by 2000.
By September 2000, Temple shared the
fourth lowest unemployment rate of 3.3 percent
with the Dallas area, behind Bryan-College
Station, Austin and Lubbock. Just as geography
TEMPLE
FIRSTS
Raleigh R. White, Jr., M.D., co-founder of Scott & White, bought the first
automobile, a 1906 Cadillac, so he could make faster house calls. However,
since Temple’s first streets were rough, muddy thoroughfares until they were
paved in 1910, the car often stood idle waiting for the streets to be drivable.
played a major role in the city’s early
development in the 1880s, the city has again
benefited from its central location in the state.
The opening of the twenty-first century opened
new opportunities for Temple from the south.
Austin, Texas, the state capital 70 miles away,
was white-hot with growth spurred by high-tech
companies. More than 80 percent of the state’s
population lives within 200 miles of Temple.
Temple has benefited from Austin’s overflow. City
leaders launched a campaign to sell Temple’s
location, low cost of living and small-town charms.
Originally called “the Wildflower Capital of Texas”
since the early 1980s, Temple looked back to its
historical roots—literally and figuratively—
acquired a new designation in early 2000s, “Tree
City U.S.A.” W. Goodrich Jones, father of Arbor
Day, would be pleased that his nineteenth-century
vision has endured.
Enduring, too, is Temple’s ability to change and
grow over the decades, despite internal and
external challenges. Temple was born at the
dawning period of remarkable optimism, when
Texans sensed they had a destiny to fill. In the
midst of Reconstruction after the War Between the
States, John Milton McCoy, a young Indianan who
had settled in Dallas and who later became a
prominent civic leader, wrote home: “My idea is
that the time will come when Texas society will be
the most refined of any in America. It will be
simply the polished steel. It is now steel in the rust
and rough. Send on your teachers, your preachers,
58 ✦ HISTORIC TEMPLE