Providence Sanitarium

The sisters who ran Providence belonged to an order with a long Texas record. The Handbook of Texas says the Daughters of Charity opened their first Texas school at Jefferson in October 1869, after a three-week trip from New Orleans, and left in 1875. They returned in 1892 to run a hospital in El Paso, reached Dallas in 1895 and Austin in 1902, and in Waco the Handbook dates their hospital to 1904. In 1983 Governor Mark White proclaimed November 29 Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Day.

What the plaque says

Providence Sanitarium Finding local medical facilities lacking in 1901, Dr. James W. Hale of Waco took an ailing patient to the Touro Infirmary of New Orleans. Upon his return, he enlisted the help of Waco's Business Men's Club, forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce, to begin efforts to build a local hospital. The men's group called on the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a group founded in France in 1633 and brought to America by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to aid those in need. By 1903, when the order broke ground for Waco's Hospital, the Daughters of Charity also administered hospitals in Dallas and Austin. Construction of the Waco facility culminated with a formal dedication on January 11, 1905. The sisters operated Providence Sanitarium at 1700 Providence Drive, then on the edge of town, under a city government contract which paid expenses for indigent patients, then called charity cases. By February 1906, the hospital treated more than 100 each of city and private patients. Between 1906 and 1960, there were 743 graduates of the Providence School of Nursing. During the sanitarium's first year and during epidemics, the sisters and lay nurses attended to thousands of patients onsite. After 1906, during the leadership of Sister Ursula Fenton, Providence offered a soup kitchen, dispensary and clothing donation center. It also worked with the American Red Cross during World War II to train nurses. As Waco's population grew, Providence changed to meet the city's needs. The hospital began offering mental health services in 1952. It relocated to this site in 1989 and the name was changed to Providence Health Center. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dr Pepper Museum — 5.0 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.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 5.1 mi
  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.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 5.3 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.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 5.5 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of Waco Boating and Fishing Club — 1.6 mi
• Central Presbyterian Church — 1.9 mi
• Congregation Rodef Sholom — 2.2 mi
• Brazos River Transmission Electric Cooperative — 3.3 mi