He chose Callahan County, Texas to serve in what for all country doctors was a sometimes hazardous occupation. Callahan County had only been in existence for twenty-three years when Dr. Griggs began his practice in the small hamlet of Admiral, Texas in April of 1900. The previous year, he spent his third-year vacation from medical school in Admiral battling a typhoid epidemic. Education was important to the Griggs family; he earned enough money to put himself and two brothers through college. He was also a pitcher on the University of Tennessee baseball team. He graduated with a medical degree at age 26, having set for himself this goal at an early age.
“I started my medical career with an ole gray horse, two pill bags and a borrowed $20 bill. I have traveled in flood and freezing weather knowing I’d get nothing.”
The saddlebags had everything in them that was known to medicine. They smelled like a combination of asafetida and skunk and when the doctor threw them down on the stove to dry, they reeked like a wet dog. But everyone understood that not much stood between people and death but the doctor and the contents of his saddlebags.
The T & P Transportation Museum is proud to be able to exhibit many of Dr. Griggs’s instruments and the old saddlebags themselves! Special thanks to his family, especially his granddaughter, Debbie McElMurray for helping us put this together.
In September of 2010, the dedication of the Dr. R.L. Griggs exhibit was attended by many. A special guest book is located in the exhibit that commemorates all the folks who were either delivered by Dr. Griggs or had children delivered by them. Some covered 3 generations!
