Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Carlsbad Texas sanatorium
May 14, 2003

Carlsbad, Texas once had the foremost tuberculosis sanatorium in the nation. Recently I drove past Carlsbad on the way to San Angelo, and other than knowing a tuberculosis sanatorium had been replaced by a facility run by the State of Texas for mentally handicapped adults, I realized I knew little about it. I love research, and at Felton Cochran’s Cactus Book Store in San Angelo I found Concho Valley historian Barbara Barton’s Saber, Shield, and Spurs featuring a chapter on the sanatorium. I later found additional information on the Internet.

The area was once the sixty thousand-acre Hughes ranch. In 1907 the owners divided the ranch into parcels of 80, 160, and 320 acres and did business as the Concho Land Company. They drew a townsite plan, built a hotel and began to sell lots for the new town of Hughes. If a person bought a larger parcel, they received a town lot for free. They advertised extensively, and farmers came from Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and other states, and within two years 600 people lived at Hughes, supporting over a dozen commercial enterprises.

A deep well produced mineralized water, so the company built a bathhouse, so people would come and received treatments for stomach problems. Such mineral water spas were quite common all over the west at the time. So many people came that a post office became a necessity. There was already a town named Hughes Springs in Texas, so they had to choose another name. The promoters of the spa suggested Karlsbad, the name of a spa in Bohemia, but changed the K to a C.

J.W. Hunter started a newspaper in Carlsbad in 1908, the same year his son Marvin was born. In 1910 J.W. started a magazine entitled Frontier Times, which Marvin continued until his death in 1957. Among western history aficionados, it is considered an excellent source of first-hand accounts of the settling of the west.

Unfortunately, in the late “teens” (1916-1919), west Texas endured one of its cyclical severe droughts. The river dried up, the crops did not grow, and the range grass died out. Most people moved away, leaving less than 200 people and only one store. After the drought was over, people again immigrated to try their luck at farming and ranching, and the town grew again until drought returned and the Great Depression diminished the population. Another growth spurt occurred during the years of World War II.

Dr. Boyd Cornick moved to Knickerbocker, Texas in 1891. In 1901 he moved to San Angelo and opened a tuberculosis treatment facility. He had contracted tuberculosis in the 1880’s, and after trying several of the accepted medical procedures, decided that a dry climate would help alleviate its symptoms. He believed the dry air and a proper diet were the most important factors of enjoying life with tuberculosis. Thousands of people died from tuberculosis each year, 4000 in Texas alone. According to one source, over 70 percent of the U.S. population had some form of the disease in 1900. Many tuberculosis patients moved to the Concho River Valley as Cornick’s dry air theory gained credence.

By 1911 the Texas Legislature passed a bill to develop hospitals to fight the disease. Carlsbad, because of the 20 years of work by Cornick, was chosen as the site of Tuberculosis Colony #1. Three more such hospitals were built in Legion, Kerrville, and San Antonio. Small bungalows were built with screen wire on all four sides. During bad weather and cold, canvas panels covered the screens. Patients had to eat a pound of meat with each meal, followed by four raw eggs in milk. Each meal also included a vegetable side dish. Also known as the galloping consumption, tuberculosis has symptoms of hoarseness, emaciation, fever, diarrhea and coughing. Unknown to the early doctors, it is transmitted through the air after a cough. Anybody that helped the patients had to dress in special clothes, but they left their mouths and noses exposed. As a result, many nurses contracted the disease. In 1914, Joseph McKnight was appointed resident superintendent for a year, but he stayed until 1950. McKnight started a nurse training program in 1914, but until the doctors discovered its aerial transmission, had difficulties in finding people to help.

The treatment was known as “chasing the disease.” Katherine Anne Porter, one of the best-ever writers from Texas, spent two years at the Carlsbad Sanatorium. While at the Kerrville Sanatorium, Jimmy Rodgers, the first country music star, recorded “I’ve got the T.B. Blues,” but died a week later. The patients coughed and spit up all day long, so paper tissues and paper cups were a necessity, and after collection, all the paper was burned at the end of the day. At times a patient would suffer a collapsed lung, so patients would have air pumped into their lungs.

The town of Carlsbad is just a few miles north of the North Concho River. Native pecans line the stream, along with little walnuts, willows, hackberries and other trees. Just to the north of the town are the mesas that separate the Concho River and the Colorado River. Today little farming occurs, and the ranches are becoming small acreage lots for people wanting the quiet of a rural residence while commuting to employment in San Angelo.

I passed the sanatorium while on the way to present a program in San Angelo. There, I met Sue Mims, a co-owner of the Walnut Creek Ranch a few miles northwest of Carlsbad. The drought and low cattle prices have stimulated diversification. The ranch now has a bed and breakfast (325-653-8147), and guided tours to see the wildlife. A few years ago endangered Black-capped Vireos were discovered on the property. Normally found further south in the Edwards and Stockton Plateaus, the species has colonized new territory near Water Valley and Carlsbad. Birdwatchers come to observe the species. Ms. Mims and others carefully observe the nesting pairs and record their reproductive success.

During the first half of the 20th century, a saying indicated the importance of the medical industry in the Concho River Valley – “Tuberculosis, the plague that saved San Angelo.” Ms. Mims may soon utilize a new saying, “Black-capped Vireo, the bird that saved a ranch.”