Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 21, Number 2, Fall 2009 Page: 28
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Legacies: a History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Dallas Historical Society.
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Old Parkland Hospital
BY RITA Coxam Cochran, past Texas Masonic Grand
C( Master, presided over formal ceremonies to
lay the cornerstone for Dallas's new city hos-
pital on March 18, 1913. An estimated crowd of
300 dignitaries and citizens from all walks of life
gathered to celebrate the new facilities for indi-
gent, sick, and injured persons. Speakers from the
medical profession and elected officials lauded
Dallas citizens for voting $100,000 in bonds for
the hospital,1 to be supported jointly by the city
and county governments.2
Informal ceremonies on December 23 and a
community open house on December 94 of that
year opened the new hospital for patients. The
Dallas Morning News praised the new hospital:
"The building itself is of modern, fireproof con-
struction throughout, modeled on simple Doric
lines and finished in buff brick and stone ....
The appearance of the place alone from the
exterior is sufficiently prepossessing to win the
heart of any visitor, whether sick or well."5
No one present could have foreseen the
connection that the new hospital would build
with Dallas citizens, nor would they have imag-
ined the many roles the building would play over
the next 90-plus years.
An Early Commitment
to Public Health
Dallas physicians were concerned about
public health and caring for needy patients very
early, a sustained tradition.6 The 1913 Parklandwas the third city hospital. With a population of
3,000, and corresponding with the year that
Dallas became a railroad crossroads,7 Dallas
appointed its first health officer in 1873.8 The
first official city hospital opened the next year in
an existing two-story wooden building at the
corner of South Lamar and Columbia. All
patients-men, women and children-were
treated in an 18-bed ward with primitive sanita-
tion and surgery by lamplight.9 Although the
space was expanded and some improvements
were made over the years, conditions remained
primitive.' The newspapers, citizens, and a series
of health officers pressed for facilities, supplies
and staff." Change came very slowly. Finally, in
1892, a new health officer asked for a new hos-
pital.Voters approved $40,000 in bonds for con-
struction in 1893.'2
In 1890 the Federal Census reported 38,067
residents, making Dallas the largest city in Texas
for the first (and last) time.'3 The new hospital
opened in May 1894, constructed on land at the
intersection of Maple and Oak Lawn Avenues.
The city had purchased the land in 1887 for a
park,14 providing Parkland with its name.15 "This
hospital consisted of a group of wooden build-
ings built on the pavilion plan, in the manner of
any army cantonment."'6
The city continued to grow, and the origi-
nal Parkland Hospital soon became inadequate
and out of date. By 1911, Dallas's public health-
care needs had again outgrown its facilities.28 LEGACIES Fall 2009
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Dallas Heritage Village. Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 21, Number 2, Fall 2009, periodical, 2009; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth66965/m1/30/?q=Lamar+University: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Historical Society.