DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place — and it's got two lives worth of story packed into one building. Back in 1914, two El Paso physicians by the names of Charles M. Hendricks and James Laws built themselves a tuberculosis hospital right there in the shadow of the Franklin Mountains.
Now, the thinking among doctors at the time was that high, dry, sparsely vegetated country was just about the best medicine a sick lung could ask for. El Paso had all of that, and it had something else too — it was a railway hub. That combination made it one of several cities in the American West that became major tuberculosis-treatment centers, drawing patients from clear across the United States.
And the Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium wasn't just any facility. It housed El Paso's only bilateral artificial pneumothorax device. Say that three times fast.
What that machine did was collapse a patient's lung — deliberately, carefully — allowing it to rest and recuperate. That was the state of the art. That was hope, 1914-style.
But medicine moves on, sometimes slowly and sometimes all at once. Through the 1930s, sanatoriums began fallin' out of favor as doctors started treating tuberculosis patients locally rather than shipping them off to the high desert. Then, the following decade, effective antibiotics arrived, and that was that.
The sanatorium model didn't just decline — it disappeared entirely. The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium had already closed its doors in 1940. Now here's where the story turns, and turns hard.
While all of this was unfolding in the world of medicine, something else entirely was happening just across the Rio Grande. The Mexican Revolution ran from 1910 to 1920, and in its wake — and during it — thousands of Mexican refugees poured into El Paso, fleeing political and religious persecution. Among them were the Franciscan priests of the province of the Holy Gospel.
They had left Mexico City and made their way to El Paso with a clear purpose: to train Catholic priests and to serve the city's growing Hispanic population. Those Franciscan priests looked at the empty sanatorium — a building that had been built to heal lungs — and they saw something else. A future.
The Franciscan order purchased the former sanatorium and transformed it into the Roger Bacon Franciscan Seminary. For more than seven decades, that seminary has been educating young men for the priesthood. A building that once collapsed lungs so they could heal.
Now it shapes souls so they can serve. One address. Two missions.
Both of them, in their own way, about restoration.
What the marker says
The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium, built in 1914, was a tuberculosis hospital under the supervision of two El Paso physicians, Charles M. Hendricks and James Laws. At the time, many doctors believed that most lung diseases could be treated successfully in a high, dry and sparsely vegetated climate. El Paso, a railway hub next to the Franklin Mountains, was one of several cities in the American West that became major tuberculosis-treatment centers, attracting patients from across the United States. The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium housed El Paso's only bilateral artificial pneumothorax device, a machine that collapsed a patient's lung, allowing it to rest and recuperate. Sanatoriums declined in popularity during the 1930s as doctors began to treat tuberculosis patients locally and disappeared entirely when effective antibiotics became available the following decade. The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium closed in 1940. During and after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), El Paso became home to thousands of Mexican refugees fleeing political and religious persecution. Among those refugees were the Franciscan priests of the province of the Holy Gospel, who left Mexico City and moved to El Paso to train catholic priests and to serve the city's growing Hispanic population. The Franciscan order purchased the former sanatorium and transformed it into the Roger Bacon Franciscan Seminary. For more than seven decades, the seminary has educated young men for the priesthood.