John Shaw Billings, who lived in Allensville as a child, became a Civil War surgeon who established field hospitals at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. After transferring to the Surgeon-General’s Office, he developed a comprehensive library that revolutionized medical research. In the 1870s, he helped compile Index Catalogue and Index Medicus, forerunners to databases like MEDLINE. His experience treating and transporting wounded Civil War soldiers made him an innovator in hospital design, and he planned Johns Hopkins Hospital to reflect his ideas about medical education, hygiene, and sanitation. He also became the first director of the New York Public Library from 1896 to 1913 and devised more efficient systems to tabulate vital statistics for the U.S. Census.