Local History: Home

Already known as the Hospital Center of the South, Temple, Texas, became a city of unprecedented activity when it was awarded a general hospital. The Veterans Administration Hospital in Temple as we know it now began its existence as U. S. Army McCloskey General Hospital in 1942. The opening of McCloskey General Hospital and nearby Camp Hood (later Fort Hood) in 1942 marked a new era in the growth of Temple and Bell County, both economically and culturally. Designated primarily as an amputee hospital, McCloskey was the largest post in the Eighth Service Command and the second largest general hospital in the nation. Thousands of people traveled the halls and grounds of McCloskey General Hospital during World War II. It saw patients from every battlefield of the war, and its corridors were like the world's crossroads for men and women from remote outposts. With peak loads of battle casualties, physicians at McCloskey had the opportunity to try new and experimental procedures on patients, and several new developments in medicine were pioneered there. Throughout the war, McCloskey General Hospital was featured in hundreds of news stories and photographs, and ordinary citizens around the country knew of the hospital from their own hometown newspapers. By the end of the war, Temple had doubled in population and would never be the same.