Jonny Goodday | 08/11/2020 | Goodday Mineral Wells | Jonny Goodday Architectural Archives
A Founding Hospital of Mineral Wells
Many have passed by this old building only to gaze up at the upside-down crosses at the peaks of the columns, wondering “what is this building?” Some speculate that the building itself holds an evil past and was once the place where horrible experiments were performed on people during the earlier days of Mineral Wells. After conducting extensive research, I hope to eliminate such speculation. Only standing one block away from the Crazy Water Bottling Company, this historic hospital has a pretty interesting story to tell…
Dr. and Mrs. R.R. Norwood moved to Mineral Wells in 1904 after living in Weatherford for a short time. They had both graduated from the Southern School of Osteopathy and had married on their graduation day.
Shortly after moving to Mineral wells, Parry & Spicer Architects worked with Goodrum, Murphy & Croft Contractors to build the Norwood Hospital. Originally, it was only two stories. The addition of the third floor was not to be added until a later time. A two-story building was built behind it, creating the women’s clinic. Many of the original buildings in Mineral Wells carried symbols on top of them for different reasons. The Norwood Hospital displayed upside-down crosses at the height of their columns to symbolize the cross of St. Peter – not an “anti-christian” symbol.
Norwood Hospital was the first hospital in Mineral Wells, carrying with it the responsibility to grant further, prime innovations that were the first of their kind in the area. The first x-ray machine, the first cancer education center, and the first hernia operation to be performed via injection were but a few on the list that Mineral Wells has witnessed. For a building that many know little about, the Norwood Hospital was a place where both the science and the art of medicine promoted healing within the most humble of beginnings.
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Dr. R.R. Norwood was a pioneer of the medical field during the administration of Gov. Neff. He was a member of the State Board of Medical Examiners. He and his wife, Dr. Regina Norwood, both practiced medicine in Mineral Wells. After Dr. Regina Norwood’s retirement from medicine, Dr. R. R. Norwood continued to practice until 1952. That same year, he would pass away at the age of eighty-two.
The building was donated to the Mineral Wells Historic Foundation. Plans were announced to convert the clinic to a Bed and Breakfast facility, but no progress towards such a conversion ever came forward. Now, the possibility to turn the Norwood Hospital into a museum remains an unlocked potential for the future, but nothing is official.
Have you seen this building in person?
sources of info:
-The Portal to Texas History
-Findagrave.com
-Mineralwells.info
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