The years following the change from Tri-State Sanitarium to Tri-State Hospital in 1929 were filled with challenges and opportunities for Drs. Willis and Knighton along with other Tri-State physicians and surgeons. First came the Great Depression of the 1930 and then the War Years of the 1940s. Many younger doctors served in the military while the older ones were fighting the battle on the home front. Their biographies are the history of their Time and Willis-Knighton Health Systems very earliest years.
Dr. Oscar O. Jones was one of the pioneers of x-ray technology in Northwest Louisiana. He was born in Alabama in 1882 before the discovery of x-rays and their use in diagnosing illnesses. Dr. Jones graduated from Birmingham Medical College of the University of Alabama in 1914. He practiced medicine in several states throughout the South before settling in Shreveport in 1931.
He practiced at the Tri-State Hospital, training many of the interns and nurses in what was then cutting edge imaging technology. Like many doctors of his generation he served in World War One in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a First Lieutenant. Throughout his life, he wrote numerous articles about x-ray technology and it could be used to aid physicians in both finding and relieving diseases.
Jones died literally on the steps of the hospital where he had worked for 16 years. He suffered a massive heart attack in 1951 at the age of 69 while entering the hospital one Saturday morning.
This photo along with others date from the 1940s