Old Post Sanitarium

The Post Sanitarium was one of the earliest hospitals in the Panhandle and South Plains region and was exceptionally well-equipped for a small Texas settlement only five years old. The sanitarium also represents a tangible link with the city's founder, C. W. Post, and his conception of the model city. The post became interested in health and dietetics while a patient in a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the 1890s, and his concern for health influenced the establishment of the Post Sanitarium in 1912.

Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1854, Charles William Post became a successful businessman and inventor before he was thirty years old. Howe, However, in 1885, Post suffered from a severe stomach disorder and nervous breakdown. He resigned from his position as head of the Illinois Agricultural workers in August of 1886 and when his health improved, he made his first trip to Texas. Seeking opportunities in the western frontier and a suitable climate for his health, Post traveled to Fort Worth in September 1886 and became associated with a real estate firm. From his many hunting trips in the Texas Panhandle, Post began envisioning the development of western real estate. After two more nervous breakdowns, Post moved his family in 1891 to Battle Creek, Michigan, where he could receive better medical attention. While a patient in a Battle Creek sanitarium in 1891 he was served the various health foods which had been developed there and began to study foods and their relationship to health. During this period he developed his own theory of dietetics. Impatient to be cured, he left the sanitarium to cure himself.

While he had traveled in Texas, Post met several farmers' wives who had been mixing chicory with roasted wheat and other ground grains combined into a makeshift coffee. He experimented with it trying to find a coffee substitute that had much of the same taste but no ill effects on the body. Opening his own Battle Creek sanitarium in 1892, La Vita Inn, he continued to experiment with the warm cereal drink and eventually perfected it in 1894 and called his product Postum. Through his own successful promotion, the mixture of wheat, bran and molasses, brought him his fortune. As Postum had a seasonal demand, Post quickly developed a second cereal, Grape Nuts, in 1897 and put it on the market the following year. Numerous other trademarked kinds of cereal were to follow, such as Post Toasties and Post Bran.

Post was a multi-millionaire by 1906 when he returned to Texas and purchased a quarter-million-acre tract that stretched along the Cap Rock Escarpment. T. P. Stevens, a veteran rancher, assisted him in purchasing the West Texas ranchland, and W. E. Alexander became the manager for his colony in January of 1907. Situated near the center of his vast lands, Post kept a close watch over his settlement for the next six years. Surrounding properties were broken up and fenced into 160-acre tracts on which he built a five or six-room house on each. These improved properties were sold at a low-interest rate on a long-term note to the farmer who settled there. He also founded a hotel, a cotton mill, a bank, a telephone company, and a sanitarium. He brought the Santa Fe railroad to Post, tried to establish Texas Tech in the community, became the father of West Texas irrigation, and continued to drill unsuccessfully for oil. One of his most spectacular experiments was his persistent attempts to force rain with dynamite during the West Texas droughts.

Post's interest in health led to the founding of the Post Sanitarium in 1912, but the hospital also represents the man's personal conflict in the field of medicine. When the medical treatment did not result in immediate recovery from his physical and mental breakdown in 1890, he joined the Church of Christian Scientists. He remained a member of this religious faith for the duration of his life. Consequently, it is ironic that he was responsible for the first hospital built in Garza County. This irony of his personality was also evident in the circumstances connected with his death in 1914. In need of an emergency appendectomy, he agreed to the operation which proved to be medically successful. However, due to his despondency caused by his acceptance of medical treatment which violated his religious principles, he committed suicide at his home in Santa Barbara, California.

The Post Sanitarium was built with hand-cut stone from a local quarry at the edge of the Cap Rock Escarpment on the edge of the High Plains. white sandstone was quarried and shaped by George "Scottie" Samson and his assistant Jimmy Napier. Samson and Napier immigrated to New York from Scotland in 1905. Although Napier is deceased, Samson continues to reside in Post.

Dr. Arvel Ponton opened the Post Sanitarium in 1913. The hospital had the very best medical facilities. Among numerous other modern facilities, it contained an x-ray laboratory, operating and sterilizing rooms, an elaborate diet kitchen, and a nurse's training program. The sanitarium originally operated a private electric plant, which was powered by a gasoline engine. Each patient had a private bath. Steam heat was provided from a large coal-burning furnace in the basement to steam-heated radiators in each room.
The building served as a hospital through the period of World War I but ceased operations in 1920. The Post Estate sold the building in 1928 and from 1928 to 1953 the structure was used as an apartment house. Vacated for 13 years, the building was finally bought in 1966 by Garza County and has since been used as a museum.