Santa Fe Memorial Hospital, Inc.

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little Texas on top. The first hospital in Temple. Not the biggest, not the fanciest at the start, but the first.

It opened in 1891, and it didn't open for just anybody walking in off the street. It opened for the employees of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad. Temple was a railroad town, and this hospital was a railroad institution, born right out of that iron-and-steam world.

Now, the building you might have seen standing there wasn't the original. That first structure was frame, the kind of building that gets the job done but doesn't make any promises about the future. The first section of the present building came along in 1908, replacing what had come before.

Brick over wood. Permanence over improvisation. For decades, from the opening through 1948, nursing care was provided by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.

That's a long stretch of dedication, and it left its mark on the place. But here's the detail that ought to stop you in your tracks. Among the early staff members were a Dr.

A.C. Scott, who served as chief surgeon, and a Dr. R.R.

White. Those two men later went on to form what became known as the Scott and White Clinic. Noted, the marker says.

Just noted. Sometimes the plainest word carries the most weight. The Santa Fe Memorial Hospital eventually became a general care facility, no longer just for railroad workers, but open to the wider community.

And it stands, the marker reminds us, as a reminder of Temple's early development as a railroad town. The railroad built the town, the town built the hospital, and somewhere in that hospital, two doctors were quietly figuring out what came next.

What the marker says

The first hospital in Temple, this institution opened in 1891 for employees of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad. The first section of the present building, completed in 1908, replaced an earlier frame structure. Until 1948 nursing care was provided by Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Early staff members Dr. A.C. Scott, chief surgeon, and Dr. R.R. White later formed the noted Scott and White Clinic. Now a general care facility, Santa Fe Memorial Hospital serves as a reminder of Temple's early development as a railroad town. (1982)