Born of an alliance of doctors, religious Sisters, and businessmen seeking to bring better medical care to Waco, Providence Hospital has been serving the community for over a century.

Prior to the twentieth century, Waco’s home-based medical system meant doctors traveled to houses or hotels to care for sick patients. However, when local facilities proved inadequate to care for a patient who later had to be transferred to New Orleans for treatment, Dr. James W. Hale lobbied for change. With the help of the Waco Business Men’s Club (precursor to the Chamber of Commerce), Hale requested aid from the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul to establish a hospital in the rapidly developing Central Texas town. Ground broke on the new facility in 1903, and in November 1904, three Sisters left their Maryland community to begin caring for the sick here locally. Waco’s first hospital opened on January 11, 1905.

Founded upon a commitment to serve the suffering, sick, and poor of society, the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul operated medical facilities, schools, orphanages, and other institutions throughout the country—including in Dallas and Austin—by the time Providence Sanitarium opened at 1700 Providence Drive (as noted on the Waco History map). Yet a barrage of anti-Catholic sentiment following the building’s dedication left the hospital bereft of private patients. The Daughters of Charity built up the hospital’s reputation in the community by caring for indigent patients through a city government contract and by treating sick employees of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad.

Providence continued to seek out new ways to serve the community. In 1906, the institution established a nursing school, and later, a soup kitchen, clothing donation center, and dispensary. The hospital cemented its reputation in the medical community when it proved to be a critical resource during a 1911 outbreak of spinal meningitis. During World War I, the Sisters set up a twenty-five-bed tent at Camp MacArthur to provide medical services to soldiers until the military could construct an infirmary. When an F5 tornado tore through downtown in 1953, Providence—the closest hospital to the disaster—admitted and cared for more than two hundred patients until they could be sent home or transferred to another facility.

To meet the needs of the growing hospital and community, Providence renovated its facilities multiple times and continually added departments, beginning in 1912 and continuing until the hospital moved to its present location in 1989. Providence remained a leader in the medical field, opening a Crippled Children’s Hospital in partnership with the McLennan County Medical Society in 1948, a heart clinic in 1950, and a psychiatric division—the first of its kind in Central Texas—two years later. Modernized facilities replaced the original hospital buildings in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s, a freestanding psychiatric hospital was constructed off of Highway 6. Just a few years later, the Daughters of Charity Health System Board of Directors approved the relocation of the hospital’s acute care and surgical facilities to a new complex on that same land near Highway 6, with plans to convert the old site into a housing complex for low-income seniors.

In the years since its move, Providence Healthcare Network has remained dedicated to improving the health of the community, constantly modernizing and expanding facilities and employing cutting edge techniques and technological innovations. To this day, the hospital remains committed to the Daughters of Charity’s mission to be a ministry to the suffering through the provision of health care.

For more (including 9 images & 5 audio files) view the original article

Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center has been a big name in the Central Texas healthcare network for almost a century. Though the institution’s name has changed several times over the decades, the mission remains the same: to serve the sick people of Waco and surrounding areas in a welcoming, Christian environment.

The idea for a Baptist hospital in Waco began with Arthur James Barton, pastor of First Baptist Church of Waco, as early as 1909. But this would be no small undertaking, and it would cost a great deal of money for the local congregation. The idea circulated the community for a few years, and in 1912 the Waco Baptist Association (WBA) formed the Sanitarium Standing Committee, set to raise an estimated $50,000 for the construction of a sanitarium—the predecessor to the modern-day hospital with more restricted facilities. The only other hospital in the area was the Catholic-run Providence Hospital. Financial Secretary of the Committee Ben T. Goodwin set out on a widespread fundraising campaign. Despite initial success, such as the $10,000 pledged by the Young Men’s Business League, by September 1914 Goodwin paused all fundraising efforts because of the outbreak of World War I.

The next phase of the project was taken up by Joseph M. Dawson who assumed the pastorship of First Baptist in 1915. Dawson strongly believed that taking care of the sick was an instrumental part of the Christian faith, and he often preached such messages to his congregation in support of the sanitarium. He set out himself in 1916 to acquire land for the proposed sanitarium, buying two plots for $7,000. This important step instilled confidence in the WBA, and following the land acquisitions the WBA leaders chartered the sanitarium the same year. The charter included a nursing school and specified that the sanitarium would be open to all medical school graduates and doctors “of good repute.” Further, it articulated the institution’s purpose as “a responsibility to the community [that] would transcend political strife, regional strife, religious distinctions, and racial distinctions.”

Waco local Jesse Judge Dean donated more land to the project, and by 1917 the WBA had raised $60,000. While the whole project would cost around $275,000, the WBA went ahead and hired architect George C. Burnett and contractor James S. Harrison and Son. They broke ground at the original location on Herring Avenue on July 10, 1917. By October 1918 the exterior was complete, but more funds were needed to furnish the inside. Local women’s groups such as the WBA Women’s Auxiliary donated their time and completed the landscaping, and they also donated materials such as bed linens. The hospital and nursing building were both completed in 1920.

To everyone’s surprise, the first patient preceded the hospital’s opening on May 25, 1920. Dr. H. Frank Connally performed an emergency appendectomy on Mrs. Mable Battle Westbrook at 4:30 a.m. on May 25. The first registered surgical patient, a Mrs. Mamie Lou Lange Hatch, then received her operation at 8:00 a.m. The Central Texas Baptist Sanitarium was officially up and running.

The sanitarium saw massive expansions and improvements in the following decades of the twentieth century. By 1938 the name had changed to Hillcrest Memorial Hospital. The change was meant to honor the citizens of the surrounding Hillcrest area who had worked to hard to fund raise and make the hospital a reality. In the same year, the hospital also obtained its first iron lung to treat polio. Though the hospital almost closed during the Depression, a little over a decade later it was back on its feet ready to expand. In 1953 a new wing was opened and the bed capacity raised to 175. By 1963 the hospital underwent another name change. When it was brought under the Baptist General Convention of Texas the name was changed to Hillcrest Baptist Hospital. That same decade saw the closing of the nursing school, and the hospital began to hire nurses trained at the new McLennan Community College.

The two decades from 1978 to 1998 saw the greatest changes. In 1978 the Clara and Harlon Fentress Cancer Treatment Center was built, with forty-inch walls to contain the radiation. The 1980s brought the construction of an outpatient surgical center, the Magnolia Tree Inn for patients’ families, the primary care clinic and MRI center, and labor and delivery rooms. The name of the hospital was also changed one last time in 1982 to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, to reflect the hospital’s “comprehensive approach to health education and preventative medicine.” The 1990s continued to witness immense growth, with the opening of the Heart Center, the NICU, school clinics, and the hospital’s upgrade to a Level II trauma center.

The hospital did finally run into some trouble after the turn of the century. Tensions between the doctors serving at the hospital and the administration ran high, and many doctors considered leaving Hillcrest altogether. But a change in management came in 2007 with CEO Glenn Robinson, and doctor-hospital relationships improved. It was also Robinson who oversaw the biggest change in Hillcrest history—much more than a change in name, a change in location. In 2009, every patient was transferred to the new location on I-35 and Highway 6 in just one day. Hillcrest still operates today at this location in partnership with Baylor Scott & White Health network. Primarily vacant for over ten years, several attempts to find a new owner for the old Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center Complex proved unsuccessful. In 2020, a final plan to convert the old hospital into a state-run mental healthcare facility fell through under the financial stress of Hurricane Harvey and the COVID-19 pandemic. While Hillcrest Hospital continues to serve the region in its new location, the former home of Hillcrest will be demolished and the space opened up for revitalization and new development.

For more (including 20 images & 26 audio files) view the original article