In 1933, the Ragland family opened the first full-time hospital in Upshur County. Thomas Scott Ragland, M.D. (1872–1936), came to Texas in 1895 and settled in Gilmer in 1902 with his wife, Mamie Helen Denson Ragland. Along with serving as the community physician, he was a local surgeon for railroads, a businessman, and president of First National Bank. He later worked with his two sons, Madison Scott Ragland and Hugh Mayo Ragland, who joined his practice after completing medical training. That year, they purchased property on Cass Street and built a hospital and clinic to serve Gilmer and surrounding areas. The Ragland Clinic-Hospital expanded several times, first in 1935 with nine additional hospital rooms and beds, then in 1946 with a new north wing, upstairs rooms, a dietary kitchen, and a pharmacy. A 1953 expansion added more bedrooms and treatment facilities, and the final expansion in 1957 increased in-room patient capacity and added a doctors’ office wing. Additional staff later included Drs. J. Looney Fenlaw and Tedroe J. Ford, and the institution’s name changed to reflect the added physicians. Besides treating patients, it created a successful licensed vocation nursing program to help address the critical shortage of nurse retention during World War II. It remained the only general medical facility in Upshur County until closing in 1981, when a new regional medical center opened.