Historical Marker
American Legion Hanson Post No. 54
Amarillo, Potter County · Texas
Erected 2011
The doctor the post honors had served three times before France. David Thomas Hanson, born at Tuscola, Illinois, in 1877, volunteered during the Spanish-American War and then spent nearly two years in the Philippines with the 45th U.S. Volunteer Infantry. He earned his medical degree at Northwestern University in 1908 and followed a younger brother to Amarillo. In 1916 he went to the Mexican border as a medical officer with an Amarillo unit of the National Guard. Killed at forty-one on October 8, 1918, he received the Croix de Guerre and was reburied at Tuscola.
What the plaque says
American Legion Hanson Post No. 54 Amarillo's American Legion Post, organized in July 1919, is one of the oldest in Texas, formed two months after the group's organizational caucus in St. Louis. The post, which officially received its charter in Sep. 1919, is named for David T. Hanson, a popular Amarillo doctor who served in the Spanish-American War and World War I. Volunteering as a surgeon with the 142nd infantry, he was killed while attending to a wounded soldier at St. Etienne, France. Ernest O. Thompson, later mayor of Amarillo, was the first post commander. Hanson Post worked to secure jobs and medical care for veterans, and promoted creation of a veterans hospital in the region. The post also helped coordinate veterans' affairs before Amarillo received a branch of the Veterans Bureau in 1927. Hanson post also donated clothes, food and toys to needy veterans' families at Christmas. The post first met in the district courtroom of the Potter County Courthouse before moving to the Woodmen of the World Hall. In 1923, the Municipal Auditorium, dedicated to the war dead, included meeting space for the Legion Post; national post commander Alvin Owsley attended the dedication ceremony. The post later bought a building at Seventh and Madison streets which has been its headquarters ever since. Hanson post developed a ladies auxiliary (1920), junior auxiliary (1923), an early R. O. T. C. Unit (1928) and a Sons of the Legion (1934). In 1939, Amarillo got the Veterans Hospital which Hanson Post and civic leaders worked so hard to secure, bringing an important source of construction and medical jobs for the region. Post membership peaked around 1,200 members following World War II. The post continues to support active duty military personnel and veterans throughout the world. (2011)
Where it stands
35.20750, -101.84448 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Route 66 Sixth Street Historic District — 1.3 miThirteen blocks of Amarillo's streetcar suburb that Route 66 turned into a roadside strip, from the 1922 Nat to Texaco, Phillips and Dutch Mill stations, now shops and bars.
- Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument — 3.9 miFour sealed time capsules raised in Amarillo in 1968 for helium's centennial, in the city that for years produced almost all the world's commercial helium from the Cliffside field.
- Cadillac Ranch — 8.2 miTen Cadillacs from 1949 to 1963 planted nose down in a pasture west of Amarillo by the Ant Farm collective in 1974, on private land where visitors are let in to paint them.
- Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 16 miThe Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.