After the Texas legislature passed a law in 1911 establishing state institutions for tuberculosis treatment, Anti-Tuberculosis Colony No. 1 was founded across the highway in 1912 and opened with facilities for 57 patients on a 330-acre tract. A Tuberculosis Nursing School was established there in 1915 and by 1961 had graduated 500 male and female nurses. The colony grew into a self-sustaining community with an average population of 2,000 in 36 buildings on 992 acres, including a post office, library, public school, power plant, dairy, vegetable garden, bakery, and butcher shops. Renamed the State Sanatorium in 1919, it usually kept patients for nine months and at its height could treat 950 adults and 250 children. In 1955 it was renamed McKnight State Tuberculosis Hospital in honor of Dr. J.B. McKnight, superintendent from 1914 to 1950. Changes brought by anti-tuberculosis drugs and thoracic surgery eventually led to its closure in 1971 after fifty thousand adults and 5,000 children had received treatment there.