Burroughs, Dr. Frank R., House
408 Main St., Ritzville, WAHome of the town's most prominent physician, the Dr. Frank R. Burroughs House was built in a time of great prosperity and expansion in Ritzville and Adams County. Vacant from the late 1940's until the present, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1902.
The Great American Desert disappeared suddenly in the last part of the 19th century with the formal ending of the frontier in 1890 and the westward expansion of the railroads. Farmers found that the semi-arid interior of the nation was the finest wheat land in the world. By 1889, when Frank Burroughs arrived in Ritzville, farmers there had learned the technique of producing crops on dry land. By 1900 most farmers in Adams County were rotating crops in order to retain moisture in the fields. The county's first bumper wheat crop was produced in 1897. Ritzville was proclaimed in 1902, "the largest primary shipper of wheat and flour of any point in the world," although during later years the railroad developed stations at other points in Adams County which ended this distinction. Ritzville remained one of the most prosperous agricultural communities in the West until the Great Depression.
In 1888 a young doctor, Frank R. Burroughs, from Columbus, Pennsylvania, stepped off a train in Ritzville on his way west. He never boarded the next train to the coast. While the citizens questioned him medically, he discovered the business possibilities of this barren little town without a competing physician. Burroughs remained in Ritzville for the rest of his life.
Born in Columbus, Pennsylvania in 1859, Frank Burroughs studied at Allegheny College, Meadeville, Pennsylvania. He completed his medical degree at the University of Buffalo. Practicing for five years in Columbus, he moved west in 1888. Burroughs was in many ways the father of Ritzville. While others named it, and still others made fortunes from it, the doctor healed its sick and delivered its children. He served it as councilman, mayor and postmaster. He was also usually the Adams County health officer. During World War I, Burroughs was draft board member. He was one of the founding members of the Masonic and Eastern Star Lodges in Ritzville as well.
Burroughs had an office but he opened his home to patients. His bags, pills and instruments still cover the table in his study; unchanged by his widow in the 20 years following his death. The doctor was active until a cerebral hemorrhage struck while at his office. He died January 28, 1925 without regaining consciousness.
When Dr. Burroughs first built in 1889, his house was small and simple. With the prosperity of 1902, he remodeled in a grander fashion, adding the upstairs and veranda at a cost of $4,000.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.