The Southwestern Medical District’s Prehistory Book Launch Was Rife With True Texas Tales

Despite their living in Dallas for ages, some guests for the launch of “The Southwestern Medical District: Prehistory to the Future of Medicine“ at the Hall of State on the evening of Wednesday, February 26, learned more than they had expected.

It seems that while they had overcome the traffic congestion around Fair Park due to an event at the Music Hall, they were surprised to be directed downstairs to the Margaret and Al Hill Lecture Hall/Auditorium for the presentation. Most admitted that they had had no idea that such a gathering place even existed.

While tables in the lobby with copies of the book were doing a brisk business, the authors, Dallas historian/Old Red Museum Director Dr. Evelyn Montgomery and Southwestern Medical District Manager Robert Prejean, were greeting guests and friends. But soon attendees like Monica and Brent Christopher, Mary McDermott with Dan Patterson, Texas Trees Foundation President/CEO Janette Monear and Fred Cerise took their seats in the auditorium. 

After a welcome by Texas Trees Foundation’s Southwestern Medical District Program Director Lannie McClelen, emcee Scott Murray interviewed the authors about the book that covered the history of the Southwestern Medical District, including such highlights as:

• Jannette came up with the idea 10 years ago to create a medical mile transformation greening plan, where Harry Hines is the main spine of the Medical District that consists of Children’s Medical Center, UT Southwestern  and Parkland Hospital, with more than 3.3M people visiting the clinics annually. It was also 10 years ago that 30,000 people were employed in the district. Today there are 42,000 people working there.
• When Evelyn was approached about the book, she admitted that she was a bit skeptical. “I knew little about it, and feared there might be little to discover. I was wrong! Though sometimes overlooked in Dallas history, the Medical District had cattle grazing. It had pioneers and cattle and illegal gambling. It had propeller planes flying overhead, funky roadside architecture and it had businesses like the Better Monkey Grip Company. It also had the home of Sam Tasby. He’s the man who challenged Dallas to integrate its schools so that his children could have an equal education.”
• Evelyn — “This was not a place where many Native Americans lived…. There were some cattle settlements, but for the most part, Native Americans used the crossing of the Trinity here to move around between the places where they wanted to hunt if they wanted to go… So, I thought that was a lot like Dallas. It was a trading center, and it was a place where they traveled instead of actually lived…. There is a very significant divider between us and Fort Worth. It’s thicker up north from, but the forest that’s out there was so dense that it could sometime stop people from being able to get through there. Some people called it the ‘Cast Iron Forest.'”

• Interesting characters — Sam Tasby, who challenged Dallas to integrate; a leading businessman and entrepreneur of the late 1800s named William Edgar Hughes; Harry Hines, who promoted four-lane highways in the ’20 and ’30s; and John Neely Bryant, who not only traded with Native Americans but was selling properties.
• Dallas is currently the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country with 7.6M residents. By the end of 2026 to 2027, Dallas is projected to pass Chicago and become the third-largest behind New York and L.A. People are moving to North Texas because it’s a very attractive area.
• Described as the Black Pine Prairie, the area is “wonderful for growing crops, but horrible for building a building because the shrinking and swelling of the soil could tear a foundation apart.”
• When Dallas’ Baylor Medical School was moved to Houston, because “Dallas asked Baylor to be a bit less Baptist and a bit more school,” Dr. Edward Carey remained. He happened to be well connected with wealthy people. One of those was Karl Hoblitzelle, who donated land and built the initial building named after Dr. Carey. Then World War II got underway. As veterans with VA options to pay for their education enrolled, the school got underway with “guys studying anatomy and stuff in little portable buildings with no air conditioning while wearing suits and ties.”
• The beginning of the The District — Originally the city and county worked together to provide medical care for those who couldn’t afford it. The motivation was, a lot of those people had contagious diseases and there was fear they could spread them. The first location was a used schoolhouse operated by a doctor who was the lowest bidder in the process. As more contagious diseases arose, the decision was made for the hospital to be located “out someplace where nobody important lives.” It turned out to be the present Medical District, where “eventually a home for boys who had been convicted of crimes was. That was eventually followed by the present-day “Old Parkland,” at the corner of Oak Lawn and Maple.
• “It seems no matter how big you build a hospital, it is too small by the day you open it.”
• Baby Camp gives birth to Children’s — “Back in the spring of 1913, you almost daily have 15 babies die from basically dehydration through diarrhea, malnutrition and poor hygiene. Luckily, we had a nurse who was studying her nursing up in New Jersey, where she was able to see these summer baby camps, and how they worked. She brought this [idea] back to Dallas, and working with the Red Cross, who donated tents for the program, they set up four tents for this first year for the baby camp. It made such an amazing difference. The city of Dallas the next year built a house for this baby camp to continue these efforts trying to treat babies who, up to this point, were treated like adults… were fed like adults. Basically, they were not able to survive. They didn’t know the digestive system of babies back then.”
• Bradford Memorial Hospital — In the 1930s, uccessful businessman Thomas Bradford’s daughter Elizabeth helped out at the baby camps. Unfortunately, Thomas lost both his wife and daughter. In honor of his daughter, he made donations to create Bradford Memorial Hospital to take care of babies. Eventually by the 1940s it became Children’s Hospital of Texas to treat children from 2 to 12 years. It expanded over 1965-1967 into the Medical District as Children’s Medical Center to be closer to Parkland hospital and also to the physicians at what became UT Southwestern. “That connection is so important, how they can all be right there together. That’s been their strength for this area.”