Hendrick Medical Center

The Baptist hospital followed a public one that failed: in 1921 Taylor County voters turned down a countywide hospital. Millard A. Jenkins then joined Jefferson Davis Sandefer of Simmons College to form a committee, and the founders took out a charter in February 1923. The Depression nearly bankrupted the sanitarium as charity cases rose and donors could no longer help. The Hendricks paid off a $40,000 mortgage and gave $100,000 for the east wing. In the Second World War, Camp Barkeley's soldiers and families pushed it to expand, and a government grant helped build the 1943 west wing.

What the plaque says

In 1915, Millard A. Jenkens (1872-1962), the new pastor of Abilene's First Baptist Church, saw a need for a hospital that prioritized serving all people, whether or not they were able to pay for treatment. His congregation shared his vision and donated $35,000 to establish a Baptist hospital. A committee formed of First Baptist congregants and officials from Simmons college (now Hardin-Simmons University). Judge Clifton Mott Caldwell and his wife, Cora (Keathley) Caldwell, donated six acres for a Baptist hospital. David S. Castle designed the 52-bed facility, which opened on September 15, 1924, as the West Texas Baptist Sanitarium. The hospital's modern facilities included three operating rooms, three elevators and an x-ray department. The hospital also hosted a nursing school. Notable early leaders include Earl Matthew Collier (1898-1981), the longest serving superintendent from 1929-1970. The new hospital experienced strain during the Depression. In 1936, Thomas G. Hendrick (1862-1946) and his wife, Ida (Nations) Hendrick (1866-1946), paid off the hospital's existing debt and financed a four-story east wing, including two specialty wards for children. The hospital was renamed Hendrick Memorial Hospital in their honor. Regular additions followed, including a four-story west wing (1943), a four-story north wing (1946), a six-story service wing (1957), student nursing housing (1959), the Millie L. Anderson building (1963), Mary Meek School of Nursing building (1966), and more. In 1971, the facility was renamed Hendrick Medical Center to reflect its regional healthcare role. For 100 years, Hendrick has committed to provide high-quality healthcare in west central Texas. (2023)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 1.6 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 12 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 14 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Abilene State Park — 19 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Hardin-Simmons University — 0.3 mi
• Site of Old Headquarters of the Hashknife Ranch — 0.7 mi
• Morgan Jones — 0.9 mi
• James Winford Hunt — 1.1 mi