Dr. David Richard Wallace

Wallace ran the State Lunatic Asylum in Austin from 1874 to 1879. In 1883 he was named to help set up the North Texas Lunatic Asylum, later Terrell State Hospital, which opened on July 14, 1885 with a five-man staff under him. It admitted 330 patients from forty-six counties in its first year. The Handbook of Texas says he believed the insane should not be hidden away but treated as ill, which made him a pioneer of Texas psychiatry. He resigned in 1891, returned to Waco, and limited himself to nervous diseases.

What the plaque says

Dr. David Richard Wallace (Nov. 10, 1825-Nov. 21, 1911) Educated as a physician, North Carolina native David Richard Wallace moved to Texas in the 1850s. He taught at Baylor University in Independence and in Waco, and served in the Civil War. In Waco, he was a prominent doctor, educator, and civic leader who was instrumental in the formation of state and local medical associations. An early pioneer in psychiatry, he was named to head asylum facilities in Austin and Terrell. Recorded - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — steps away
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.7 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.9 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 1.2 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Carroll Library — steps away
• The Texas Collection — steps away
• Burleson Quadrangle — steps away
• Governor Patrick Morris Neff — steps away