The infancy of the Baylor Health Care System is marked by the State of Texas issuing a charter on Oct. 16, 1903, to a small medical facility called the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium.
When one reviews the medical history of Dallas, and particularly the beginning of a facility that would serve East Dallas, there are names that are remembered by many today. Dr. Charles McDaniel Rosser, appointed health officer for the City of Dallas in 1891, worked tirelessly to promote medical education and health care.
As Dallas entered a new century, it was described as a prosperous, growing city of 42,638 people, developing rapidly as a cotton, railroad and financial center of the South. Dallas had only two hospitals in 1900: Parkland, a tax-supported public facility on Oak Lawn, and the privately owned St. Paul Sanitarium on Bryan (now known as St. Paul Hospital, located on Harry Hines).
In 1903, Dr. R.C. Buckner and Dr. George Truett led the formation of a hospital corporation in the City, and Col. C.C. Slaughter, a prominent cattle baron, was the first to respond with a gift of $50,000 for the beginning of a hospital.
Since those early years of the 1900s, when the Texas Baptist Sanitarium was chartered – it was later named Baylor University Medical Center and now is known as the Baylor Health Care System – the system has seen phenomenal growth.
The Baylor System is comprised of 12 owned, leased and affiliated hospitals in North Central Texas and employs more than 7,000 full-time employees and more than 2,300 part-time employees.
