St. Joseph's Hospital

Paris had hospitals before the Sisters arrived in 1911. The Paris News reports that the town's first hospital was a privately owned charity hospital, renamed Aikin Hospital in 1893 after Col. W. B. Aikin gave property on West Washington Street. In 1896 four Sisters of Mercy opened a convent and school, which lack of funds turned into a hospital in 1907. The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio bought it in 1911. Aikin Hospital operated until early 1924, when its building was declared unsafe and a tax-supported hospital replaced it.

What the plaque says

St. Joseph's Hospital In 1911 the Catholic bishop of Dallas, Joseph Patrick Lynch (1872-1954), beseeched the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word to administer St. Joseph's Infirmary in Paris. The congregation, based in San Antonio and experienced in hospital care, dispatched six Sisters by train. They arrived in Paris in August, and began refurbishing the 2-story, 16-room frame infirmary on this site. The building had been converted about 1908 from St. Patrick's Academy (established in 1898), but was later abandoned. The Sisters' first patient was admitted on October 1, 1911. Within three years Bishop Lynch dedicated a new 4-story brick infirmary here. When much of Paris was consumed by fire on March 21, 1916, St. Joseph's survived with its own power and light plant. Doctors' offices and school classes were welcomed in the infirmary. World War II ended the Depression and brought an army camp to Paris, with St. Joseph's serving the military and dependents who arrived. The 1914 building and hospital services were expanded during and after the war, directly supporting the economic growth of Paris. In 1963 a campaign was launched by the congregation and local supporters to build a new hospital, dedicated here in 1968. The facility and services have been frequently expanded to serve a large surrounding region. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 1.1 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Eiffel Tower — 2.0 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 23 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Paris — 0.4 mi
• Paris Public Schools — 0.4 mi
• Robert Cooke Buckner — 0.4 mi
• Paris Fire Department — 0.4 mi