Sid Peterson, affectionately known as “Cap,” was born in Lavaca County in 1868. His family came to Kerr County in 1882. He spent his youth with cattle herds in Kansas and later became one of the most influential ranchmen and landholders in the Hill Country. Cap married his sweetheart, Myrta Goss, in 1898 and together they had three sons.

The eldest son, Hal “Boss” Peterson, was a gifted businessman. He left his parents’ ranch at 15 to work in Weston’s Garage, on the corner of Sidney Baker and Water Street in downtown Kerrville. By the time he was 18, he owned the garage.

Together with one of his brothers, Charlie, he built an empire known as “Peterson Interests,” which included bus lines, real estate developments, businesses, and ranch land – altogether 22 major enterprises worth millions of dollars. Hal was the visionary and had more business ideas per day than most have in a year. Charlie was the more grounded of the two and kept Hal and his ventures on track.

As their father’s health began to fail, he spent a lot of time at the Nix Hospital in San Antonio. Kerrville had a hospital, but it was too small for adequate treatment. When Cap died of heart disease in 1939 his sons vowed that someday Kerrville would have a first-class hospital of its own.

In 1944, they established the Hal and Charlie Peterson Foundation with an initial contribution of $100 and the vision of supporting health care, education, and other charitable organizations throughout the Hill Country. By 1947, the Foundation Trustees voted to establish a non-profit hospital in the City of Kerrville for “the benefit of the people of the Hill Country in general.”

If you take a hard look at the numbers, the plan for the hospital was bigger than the community it served. The population of Kerr County in 1950 was only fourteen thousand and then, as it is now, only about half of the county’s population lived in the City of Kerrville.

To build a hospital in such a small, rural community wouldn’t seem to make a lot of financial sense. Hospitals require a lot of capital – equipment upgrades, medicine expenses, and highly-trained staff.Yet with help from the community, the two brothers made it happen.

While the building plans were met with enthusiasm, the location for the hospital was not. As legend has it, Hal got tired of all of the suggestions and decided to build the hospital on land the brothers owned: right in the middle of downtown Kerrville on the corner of Sidney Baker and Water Street.

When Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital was formally opened on July 3, 1949 it was a big deal – marking another stride forward for Kerrville as a leading Southwest Texas medical center. This million-dollar venture was the first hospital in the nation to have central air conditioning and an intercom system connecting each patient to a nurse’s station. It also boasted innovative amenities, such as an 11-pump fuel station on the ground level and office suites for lease.

Hal and Charlie Peterson kept their vow, dedicating the modern hospital to their father, Sid Peterson, and the Hill Country community with this statement of servant leadership in the Opening Day program:

“And so here it is; it’s yours to use. If it will ease a little the sufferings of the sick and injured; if it will help a little to mend their broken bodies; if it will provide a place where the next generation – and the next – can enter this world with the best of care and attention, and if it can do these things at a minimum of expense to those who must be patients, then our purpose in building it and giving it to the Hill Country community has been well-served.”

Special thanks to Joe Herring, Jr. for providing historical information and photographs of the Peterson Family and Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital.