Historical Marker
Site of Railway Hospital
Columbus, Colorado County · Texas
Erected 1973
The hospital Harrison ran here for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio treated about 800 patients a year from all over southern Texas. Harrison came to it with long training. Born in Georgia, he studied medicine in his father's infirmary and at colleges in Cincinnati and Mobile, practiced and taught medicine in Tennessee from 1846 into the mid-1850s, and after settling near Columbus in 1869 went back to Mobile for more training in 1873. He wrote for the Memphis Medical Journal and the transactions of the state medical association.
What the plaque says
Site of Railway Hospital Dr. Robert Henry Harrison (1826-1905), graduate of the Botanico Medical College, Cincinnati, and Alabama Medical College, moved to Columbus in the 1870s, while the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (later Southern Pacific) railway was building Columbus- San Antonio line. Physician to G.H. & S.A. president T. W. Peirce, he was 1880-87 medical and surgical director, Atlantic Division of the Southern Pacific. In 1880 he built a hospital for railway employees at this site. Staff included Drs. J. H. Bowers, A. S. McDaniel, and R. H. Harrison, Jr. About 1886, hospital burned, and was not rebuilt. (1973)
Where it stands
29.70546, -96.54297 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Homesite of Fannie Baker Darden — steps away
- Dilue Rose Harris — steps away
- William B. DeWees — steps away
- The Colorado County Citizen — steps away