DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it — and it's one worth sittin' with for a minute. We're talkin' about a man named Dr. S.
T. Turner, born in 1856, and if you do the math on a life that ran all the way to 1945, you're lookin' at nearly nine decades on this earth — long enough to see medicine go from guesswork to something like a science. Turner arrived in El Paso in 1889, not as a wanderer, but as a contract physician for the Southern Pacific Railroad.
That's a man with a purpose and a paycheck, ridin' the rails into a city that was still figurin' out what it wanted to be. He settled in, put down roots, and over the years built himself into an influential medical leader — not just locally, but at the state level too. Now, by 1910, a man of that standing needs a proper home, and Turner had one built.
A colonial revival residence, constructed by H. T. Ponsford, and believed — believed, mind you, the marker is careful about that word — to have been designed by Henry C.
Trost, a noted El Paso architect. That's a house with some serious pedigree behind it. Turner lived his life in that community, an active member of the El Paso County Medical Society.
And when he was gone, the society didn't let that house go quiet. Since 1946, those walls have housed the offices of the very organization he gave so much to. The doctor moved on, but the work — and the address — stayed.
What the marker says
Dr. S. T. Turner (1856-1945), who moved to El Paso in 1889 as a contract physician for the Southern Pacific Railroad, became an influential medical leader on the local and state levels. In 1910 he had this colonial revival residence built. Constructed by H. T. Ponsford, it is believed to have been designed by the noted El Paso architect Henry C. Trost. Since 1946 it has housed offices of the El Paso County Medical Society, of which Dr. Turner had been an active member. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982