Heman Rowlee Bull Sr. [1862 - 1934]

Individual, bull_heman_sr

Lifetime

1862 – 1934

About

Heman Rowlee Bull Birth Date: 10/26/1862 Death Date: 06/21/1934 An early Grand Junction physician who came to the Grand Valley in 1887. He was born to Sidney Bull and Ruth (Cooling) Bull in Warwick, New York. He was the oldest of six children. In 1868 or 1869, when Heman was six years old, the family moved to Amity, Missouri. At the age of sixteen, he went to Topeka, Kansas to attend the preparatory school of Washburn College, and later attended Washburn itself, graduating as valedictorian in 1884. He graduated from Jefferson Medical college in Philadelphia in 1887. He was a member of the Mesa County Medical Society and was the first doctor in the area to own a car. For many years, he served on the Grand Junction School District 1 Board prior to the establishment of Mesa County School District 51. He lived in a large house on the northwest corner of 7th Street and Grand Avenue. He enjoyed horse racing, and did so at a dirt track now occupied by St. Mary's Hospital. He was a member of the Rotary Club and the Masons. From the Mesa County Historical Society Bulletin (January-February 1983, article by Judy Anne Prosser): "Early Mesa County medical history includes a cadre of dedicated doctors who overcame the most primitive of conditions in order to practice medicine in Western Colorado. Perhaps the best known of these practitioners was Dr. Heman R. Bull, Sr. Pioneer physician, civic leader and family man, he contributed significantly not only to his profession, but participated actively in community affairs. Equipped with a recently bestowed medical degree from jefferson medical College in Philadelphia, a few instruments and medicines and his life savings of three dollars, Dr. Bull arrived in Grand Junction in May of 1887. Not yet 25, he obtained a room on credit, used most of his three dollars to by one table and a chair, and slept on the table until he could afford to purchase a bed... the townspeople drank water from the Grand (now the Colorado) and Gunnison Rivers and typhoid was common. Teaching the public to boil water became one of his most difficult problems as a public health official. Shortly after his arrival, Dr. Bull obtained a position carrying the payroll and administering to the needs of the Denver & Rio Grande's continuing construction camp, then moving toward Salt Lake City. Train and payroll robberies were common, and, as a result, he carried a nickle-plated, pearl-handles Smith and Wesson revolver. He performed his first operation -- outdoors on a cow camp on a makeshift table consisting of two sawhorses and a wagon gate. Dr. Bull served as a physician for the State Home and Training School in Grand Junction. He once obtained an artificial leg for a a patient and fitted it in his office. According to Dr. Bull's daughter, Winifred, the Indian returned to the school, and during a routine line-up exhibited two apparently good legs. the amazement of the patient's fellows apparently satisfied the young man and delighted Dr. Bull. The pioneer medical doctors in Mesa County endured a variety of hardships, including the lack of a hospital, impassable roads, and long hourse back rides which often required a week-long journey with a cowboy as a guide. During one such trip, when Dr. Bull was in the process of fording the Gunnison River in high water season, hid horse started to slip downstream. Fortunately the animal regained it's footing and was able to save itself and it's rider. In the years 1894 and 1895, the need to establish a hospital became critical. Taking the initiative, Dr. Bull contacted the Sisters of Charity in Leavenworth, Kansas. In September of 1895 Sisters Mary Balbina Farrell and Mary Louise Madden arrived in Grand Junction and selected Eleventh Street and East Colorado Avenue as the site of the future St. Mary's Hospital. A contract for the first structure, a frame building, was let next spring. Another highlight of the medical program, again initiated by Dr. Bull, was the founding of the Mesa County Medical Society on July 23, 1903. It was formed pursuant to a call from the Colorado State Medical Society, and had its objective and purpose, 'to bring into one organization the physicians of Mesa County, so that by their frequent meetings and full and frank interchange of views, they might secure inteligent harmony and unity in their labor.' Dr. Bull was a member of the American College of Surgeons, a fellow of the American Medical Society, a member of the State Board of Health (1893-1904) and served as the first president of the Colorado Medical Society from the Western Slope (1906-1907). He was a life-long member of the Republican Party, and was at one time approached as a possible gubernatorial candidate, an honor he declined. Around the turn of the century Dr. Bull entered into partnership with Dr. Knud Hanson, an association that lasted until 1932. The six0day, Monday-Saturday schedule included morning house calls and visits to the hospital, and daily office hours from 2-5 pm and 7-9 pm on Saturdays. He was especially fond of children and assisted with the arrival of some 3,500 babies during his years of practice. Dr. Bull possessed a fine tenor voice and appeared in at least one amateur production of The Mikado at the Park Opera House. He regularly sang for the benefit of his family, and his gusto and fervor while singing in church was noted. Dr. Bull was an active church member, first in the Congregational Church and later in the Presbyterian. A leading proponent of educational opportunity for all the community youth, Dr. Bull served on the Board of Education for a number of years. This position gained him particular attention and honor when he visited China in 1910. His experiences, recorded in carefully prepared notes, were later the basis for a number of presentations to local civic organizations and to students at Grand Junction High School. Two years after his arrival on the Western Slope of Colorado, Dr. Bull married Maud Winifred Price, sister of pioneer Grand Junction newspaper publisher Edwin Price. Four children were born as a result of their union: Sidney, Leland, Winifred and Heman Jr. Maud died in 1915 and Dr. Bull married Miss Ruth Burdette Fulwider of Denver the next year. Dr. Heman Rowlee Bull, after more than 45 years as a leading citizen of Grand Junction, succumbed to a long illness on June 21, 1934 at the age of 71."

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