Log Cabin Study of Dr. Arthur Carroll Scott
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(July 12, 1865-October 27, 1940) Co-founder of Scott and White Memorial Hospital, Dr. Scott used this cabin from 1920s to 1940 as a private study and retreat. In these rooms (originally two small log "corn cribs" moved here and attached) he studied, wrote, and entertained guests. Fireplace is built of unusual stones brought by friends, who knew he was a rock enthusiast. For years the cabin stood in an oak grove on hospital dairy farm (2.6 mi. NW) surrounded by masses of yellow jasmine and petunias. Dr. Scott never allowed a telephone, so a bell on the farm was rung to call him in case of an emergency. Reared in Gainesville, Scott earned M.D. degree at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, 1886. In 1892 he became chief surgeon of Santa Fe Railway Hospital, Temple; in 1897, began private practice with another Santa Fe surgeon, Dr. R.R. White (1871-1917). The partners in 1904 founded Temple Sanitarium--progenitor of Scott and White Hospital, one of the nation's foremost diagnostic and treatment centers, attracting tens of thousands of patients annually. For years expansion was met with temporary quarters until, by 1960, hospital occupied 31 buildings. In 1963 a new $10 million hospital complex opened; in 1972 cabin was moved here and dedicated as a museum. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dr. Arthur Carroll Scott, co-founder of the renowned Scott and White Hospital, used this cabin from the 1920s until his death in 1940 as a private study and retreat. Assembled from two old log corn cribs and warmed by a fireplace of stones brought by rock-collecting friends, it stood in an oak grove where a farm bell, not a telephone, summoned him for emergencies. Trained at Bellevue and once chief surgeon for the Santa Fe Railway, Scott helped grow a small 1904 sanitarium into one of the nation's foremost medical centers.
Why it matters
Scott and White grew from a railroad-town partnership into a national institution, illustrating how modern American medicine took root even in small Texas communities.
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Related people
- · Arthur Carroll Scott
- · R. R. White
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ralph Wilson, Sr.
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With only a high-school education, Ralph Wilson moved from Indiana to California in 1920 and worked his way into the decorative plaster and molding trade, buying his employer's company in 1928 and surviving the Depression. During World War II his shop made molds for bullet-proof fuel tanks and began experimenting with plastics, leading him into high-pressure decorative laminate. In the mid-1950s he founded Ralph Wilson Plastics—now Wilsonart International—in Temple, growing it into the world's largest maker of the material and endowing a lasting charitable trust.
Scott & White Hospital
Temple, TX
Temple was born as a railroad town in 1881, and by 1891 the Santa Fe had planted a hospital there to care for its workers. Two surgeons, Arthur C. Scott and Raleigh R. White, joined forces in a private partnership in 1897 and in 1904 opened the Temple Sanitarium, later renamed Scott & White. From those railroad-medicine roots it grew into one of the nation's largest group practices and a hub of medical training and research.
Arthur Carroll Scott, Sr., M.D.
Temple, TX
A Gainesville-born physician trained at Bellevue, Dr. Arthur C. Scott became chief surgeon of a Temple railroad hospital in 1892 and soon partnered with Dr. Raleigh R. White. In 1904 the two founded the Temple Sanitarium, renamed Scott & White Hospital in 1922, and Scott earned international standing as an authority on diagnosing and treating cancer. In 1933 the institution became the earliest accredited cancer treatment center in Texas, seeding a health system renowned across the Southwest.
Raleigh R. White, Jr., M.D.
Temple, TX
Raleigh R. White, Jr. (1871–1917), the son of a Mississippi minister who had trained as a physician, graduated from Tulane's medical school at just 21. Hired as a railway hospital physician in Temple in 1895, he partnered with Dr. Arthur C. Scott, and in 1904 the two founded the hospital that would become Scott & White. A gifted surgeon who worked on cancer treatment and championed the humane care of patients, White shaped Texas medicine until his early death in 1917.