Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium / Roger Bacon Seminary
El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium, built in 1914, was a tuberculosis hospital under the supervision of two El Paso physicians, Charles M. Hendricks and James Laws. At the time, many doctors believed that most lung diseases could be treated successfully in a high, dry and sparsely vegetated climate. El Paso, a railway hub next to the Franklin Mountains, was one of several cities in the American West that became major tuberculosis-treatment centers, attracting patients from across the United States. The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium housed El Paso’s only bilateral artificial pneumothorax device, a machine that collapsed a patient’s lung, allowing it to rest and recuperate. Sanatoriums declined in popularity during the 1930s as doctors began to treat tuberculosis patients locally and disappeared entirely when effective antibiotics became available the following decade. The Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium closed in 1940. During and after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), El Paso became home to thousands of Mexican refugees fleeing political and religious persecution. Among those refugees were the Franciscan priests of the province of the Holy Gospel, who left Mexico City and moved to El Paso to train catholic priests and to serve the city’s growing Hispanic population. The Franciscan order purchased the former sanatorium and transformed it into the Roger Bacon Franciscan Seminary. For more than seven decades, the seminary has educated young men for the priesthood.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1914, the Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium rose during an era when doctors believed tuberculosis could be beaten by fresh, dry desert air—and El Paso, a rail hub in the shadow of the Franklin Mountains, drew sufferers from across the country. The hospital even housed the city's only bilateral pneumothorax machine, which deliberately collapsed a lung to let it heal. When antibiotics ended the sanatorium age, the building found a second life: Franciscan priests who had fled Mexico during the Revolution bought it and turned it into the Roger Bacon Seminary, training clergy for El Paso's growing Hispanic congregations.
Why it matters
The site knits together two great American stories—the western TB-cure migration that built entire cities, and the wave of Mexican refugees whose faith and institutions reshaped the border Southwest.
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Related people
- · Charles M. Hendricks
- · James Laws
Related events
- · Mexican Revolution
Themes & tags
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