The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966 Page: 299
591 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Health Seekers in Early Texas
of any state, and since Texas' population between 1870o and 1900oo
increased by more than two million people, mostly through im-
migration, it seems safe to conclude that perhaps a quarter of a
million health seekers established permanent residences in the
state during the late nineteenth century. And that figure does not
include an even greater number of seasonal visitors who sought
renewed health at one of the many commercialized health resorts.49
It was inevitable, Texans being as they are, that a few exagger-
ated legends should arise concerning the state's proverbial salu-
brity. The most persistent of these myths satirically suggested
that it was almost impossible to die in the Lone Star State. Some
immigrants, the tale begins, were entering Texas via the Red
River and met an old man whose features were "seared and
shrunken by the hand of time." He was rushing with all speed
to the boundary of the state, and when asked the reason for such
haste he neither stopped nor paused but murmured in passing:
"I am tired of life and of the monotony of the ages, I am weary
of the slow steps of time and the dragging march of the centuries,
and I am hurrying out of Texas that I may find some place where
people can die."50
Some features of Texas' heritage are unusual, but none more
so than that a substantial number of nearly-doomed lungers,
who coughed and hacked their way into the state, not only recov-
ered in its salubrious climate but lived to make permanent con-
tributions to its history and culture.
40Mineral Wells alone claimed an annual floating population of 150,000. Texas
Almanac for zg9o (Dallas, 1910), 325-
"5Alexander E. Sweet and J. Amory Knox, On a Mexican Mustang, Through
Texas, From the Gulf to the Rio Grande (Hartford, 1883), 184. For other versions
of this legend see Thomas North, Five Years in Texas (Cincinnati, 1870), goo;
Texas Almanac for 1868 (Galveston, 1868), 168.g299
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966, periodical, 1966; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117144/m1/359/?rotate=270: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.