During the worst pandemic in modern times, Austin shut down for almost a month

On Oct. 2, 1918, the Austin Statesman ran a soothing story under the headline “Spanish Influenza Discussed in an Intelligent Manner by Leading Austin Physician.”

This curiously unnamed doctor reassured readers that the medical community had known about this type of disease since 1665.

“There is absolutely nothing new or different in the present epidemic than we have had in Austin every year for the past 20 or 25 years,” the physician said, “and there is no just cause for alarm.”

Within the next six weeks, however, more than 200 Austinites died of the Spanish flu. That worked out to less than 1% of the city’s population of 34,000, in contrast to the estimated 40 million to 50 million, up to 4% of the world’s population, killed globally during the worst pandemic in modern history.

As Austin prepares for the possible spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus that has already killed thousands, mostly in China, and with the toll rising in the United States and elsewhere, it is instructive to look back at the city’s response to the Spanish flu in 1918 and compare it with what is unfolding here by the hour.

This past week, U.S. governmental and corporate entities put selective travel bans in place. Leaders discussed barring fans from major sporting events, as has already been done in Italy, and usually active participating firms dropped out of Austin’s signature spring gathering, South by Southwest, almost by the hour last week before the event was canceled Friday.

While World War I raged, Austin remained quiet during the Spanish flu’s first outbreak, in early 1918. Over the summer, as the disease appeared to wane, the local media referred to the flu jokingly, almost derisively. Yet during the second wave of illness, in October of that year, as local soldiers and civilians became ill in the thousands and two-figure death tolls were reported sometimes daily, the Austin City Council finally acted.

Mayor A.P. Wooldridge, with the backing of council members and the city attorney, effectively shut the city down for almost a month.

A public notice ran Oct. 7, 1918: “An ordinance closing the state university, all public and private schools and colleges of the city of Austin, all churches and lodges and all other places of assemblage where people gather for religious, social, fraternal, political, business or other purpose for the period of 30 days from the date of the enactment of the ordinance unless sooner repealed by the city council.”

Violations of the ordinance, effective Oct. 8, were punishable by “a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $200.”

The role of the media

In 1918, media coverage, hushed by wartime censors, was part of the initial problem. Later, it became part of the solution for the local outbreak of the Spanish flu, whose origins have been traced back by epidemiological research to Fort Riley, Kan.

That year’s strain of influenza got its name because Spain, neutral during World War I, exercised no wartime censorship, so its relatively free press was among the first to report on the deadliness of a disease that killed in huge numbers, particularly healthy young adults, and broke across the globe in three waves from early 1918 to early 1919.

Meanwhile, U.S. and European governments suppressed news of the first wave — and any common-sense strategies for dealing with it, such as avoiding crowds — because of fears of panic during the last months of the war.

American media, including the morning Austin American and afternoon Austin Statesman, ran almost no stories during the first flu wave. When influenza rebounded in the fall, however, hardly a day passed without multiple press reports, which were later gathered and summarized in 2007 by Billy Atkins in the city’s Office of Emergency Management. His study is housed at the Austin History Center.

Newspapers published conflicting reports. On the same day, the Austin papers ran stories stating both that the “situation is not serious” and that the city was “seriously threatened.”

The sequence of the 1918 storylines can be followed today in the digital newspaper archives on Newspapers.com or ProQuest.com.

July 29: Headlines such as “Get the Flu and Be Happy,” on a story by a columnist recovering from illness, minimized the threat: “The flu victims ordinarily spend a week in bed and a week in the sunshine of the country, of which only two days — or three at the most — are unpleasant. I should call this very nice new disease ‘spree-enza.’ ”

Sept. 27: One case was reported at Camp Mabry in barracks built during World War I for a vehicle repair school, recently refurbished.

Oct. 4: Within a week, 900 fresh cases had cropped up at Camp Mabry. Cases were also reported at Penn Field and at two military training facilities on the University of Texas campus.

Oct. 5: Authorities began to distribute advisories such as “How to Prevent Spanish Influenza.” Among the familiar advice: “Keep out of crowds. Avoid drafts and colds. Keep the body strong, vigorous.”

Oct. 8: Acting Gov. R.M. Johnson took over the state’s response. Little was reported on the actions of elected Gov. W.P. Hobby, who, it turns out, was taken ill and eventually retreated to Beaumont to recover. That news did not make it into the Austin papers until December.

The city’s prohibition against social gatherings went into effect on this day. Dr. O.K. Radkey, the city physician, announced that there were at least 1,000 cases in the civilian population. In a sign of the times, lists of the ill and dead were often divided among “civilians,” “soldiers” and “Negroes.”

The American Red Cross appointed Mrs. J.A. Jackson as chairwoman of a small army of volunteer nurses. Besides the barracks, hospitals and tent facilities, public buildings such as the Scottish Rite Temple, the Knights of Columbus Hall, the First Southern Presbyterian Church and the YMCA were set up for convalescing Austinites.

Oct. 20: A special call went out for nurses to tend the “colored” community, which was losing five to seven members a day. Counts varied in the media, but the city’s black population appears to have borne more than its share of the death toll.

Oct. 21: Federal judges postponed court proceedings around the state.

Oct. 27: Mrs. Chas. A Comer reported on cases of the flu in her “South Austin News Items” column: “Mr. and Mrs. Cotner are convalescing from the influenza. A.O. Wilson is recovering from a recent attack of influenza. Miss Dollie Spillman is recovering from influenza. Mrs. J.D. Randolph of Travis Height is on the influenza list this week.”

Oct. 28: Typical short reports like this one appeared in the paper: “Ed Yeargin, who has been ill some time with influenza and very low since last Saturday, died at 2 a.m. this morning. He was a young man, but 25 years of age, and had a great many friends who regret to learn of his premature death.”

Oct. 30: A report on the outbreak in Texas cities, without data from rural areas, counted a total of 106,978 cases of influenza, 3,012 cases of pneumonia and 2,181 deaths. These figures included 576 new cases of influenza, 47 new cases of pneumonia and 52 new deaths during the most recent 24 hours. Despite these high numbers, the state government greeted this data as an indication that the worst was over.

October-December: Serious editorial news stories about the flu crisis were laced with promotions such as “Druggists still asked to conserve stocks of Vaporub needed in ‘flu’ districts” and “Hamlin’s Wizard Oil a reliable antiseptic preventative … Get it from druggists for 30 cents.”

Nov. 2: Just before the end of the monthlong shutdown, city officials rescinded the ordinance banning social gatherings. Among several celebratory headlines in Saturday’s newspapers, one said: “Everything Will Be Open Monday.”

Official responses

According to available evidence, no road barricades, such as were erected in Gunnison, Colo., blocked passage into Austin, perhaps because it would have been easy to circumvent them on the flatter land to the north, east and south. The trains for the city’s three main lines continued to run according to schedules published in the daily papers.

Along with UT, three state institutions were hit hard: the Insane Asylum, later named the Texas State Hospital, on Guadalupe Street; the Texas School for the Deaf and Dumb, later named the Texas School for the Deaf, on South Congress Avenue; and the Texas Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute for Colored Youth, closed in the 1960s and demolished with little trace, on Bull Creek Road in what is now the Grove development.

The Insane Asylum accounted for 40 of the more than 200 Austin deaths in the final tally. No explanation could be found for such a high mortality rate.

The UT campus was vulnerable because it had been mobilized for the war.

“On campus, the student barracks were converted into hospital wards,” scholar Ben Wright wrote in Alcalde, the UT alumni magazine. “To stymie the spread of disease, classes were aired out for 10 minutes between lessons and students were obliged to take their temperature each morning. As the epidemic worsened, classes were canceled for weeks on end.”

Also, football games were canceled, postponed or played without spectators.

UT leaders released a series of memos with instructions about preventing further contagion. They included directions for taking the temperatures of all students and staff members, for the sanitizing of classrooms by janitors, and for restrictions on social activity.

“The instructing staff is earnestly requested to impress upon students the value of life in comparison to momentary pleasure,” says a typewritten memo dated Jan. 9, 1919, and housed at the Briscoe Center for American History, “and urge them to remain away from all social gatherings, moving pictures and theaters until the danger of contracting influenza is passed.”

UT students were told to “remain quietly at home,” but this encouraged an exodus of anxious young people by train to their hometowns, which helped spread the disease across the state.

The most serious cases were handled at the old Seton Infirmary on West 26th Street and at the City Hospital, later named Brackenridge, at East 15th Street and East Avenue (now Interstate 35).

“The city officials came to me and said, ‘Put your white dress on and take charge,’ ” Edna Shultz, matron of the City Hospital, told a reporter. “It wasn’t long after that that influenza struck, taking more lives than did the war in Europe. I was warned that something awful was happening in Fort Worth and Dallas, that a terrible disease was making people ill. The city officials told me to get everybody out of the hospital who wasn’t seriously ill and prepare for the worst. Then they brought in Army cots and I was ready.”

As recorded for a 2017 history of Brackenridge in this newspaper, the UT ROTC unit was hit particularly hard, but under Shultz’s care, only one student died. Meanwhile, a similar scene could be witnessed at Seton.

“The sisters responded immediately, and the Army set up large tents on the grounds of Seton Infirmary and also converted a three-story fraternity house that was across the street from Seton into a temporary shelter for patients,” historian Carl McQueary told this newspaper in 2017. “The Army provided all of the iron cots, straw mattresses and blankets, and the sisters provided bedding, dishes and other items not specified.”

Elsewhere, limits were placed on the number of riders who could travel on a streetcar. The newspapers reported a “noticeable decline in travel,” and the ranks of their paper carriers were thinned by illness.

Retail outlets took precautions. Banks closed early. Churches canceled services. Twenty-nine percent of the police force of 28 officers grew ill.

One headline said: “Telegraph, Telephone, Bank and Railroad Offices Depopulated of Clerks and Assistants.”

Yesterday and today

Could such dire circumstances revisit Austin once the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, spread, as public heath experts predict?

“In the 1918 flu pandemic, everyone infected with flu had symptoms, often severe, which is not the case for the current COVID-19 pandemic,” said Robert Krug, UT professor emeritus of molecular sciences. “It is now clear that a significant number of people infected with COVID-19 show mild or no symptoms. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to identify and quarantine COVID-19 infected people in order to inhibit the spread of COVID-19 in the population, particularly if reliable testing kits for COVID-19 are not widely available, as is now the case in the U.S.”

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that Austin is one of several cities in Texas becoming capable of testing for the new coronavirus.

The scales of the death tolls for the two pandemics are also quite different.

“In the 1918 flu pandemic, approximately 40 to 50 million people died, some of whom probably died from secondary bacterial infections,” Krug said. “In annual non-pandemic flu seasons, 290,000 to 650,000 people worldwide die. At present, 3,200 people have died during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this number will certainly rise. Will the death toll rise to the level of the current annual flu deaths?”

Another difference between the two pandemics: In 1918, most of the deaths were among ages 19 to 34, whereas most of the deaths from COVID-19 have been among elderly people, particularly those with underlying health conditions. Also, there are now antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections, which was not the case in 1918.

UT history professor Abena Osseo-Asare studies global disease. In 1918, the flu “was connected to nakedness, dirt, unclean pajamas, dust, open windows, closed windows, old books, fish contaminated by the Germans, Chinese people,” she said during a panel discussion recorded in 2019 and available on YouTube. “The masks really didn’t work that well and might have included droplets that promoted secondary infections. People thought that masks were really like screens keeping out mosquitoes.”

When contacted recently for this story, Abena Osseo-Asare was particularly concerned with the stereotyping of Chinese people during the COVID-19 outbreak, which includes reported downturns in business in Houston’s Chinatown.

“Time and time again, the history of medicine teaches us that when people are confronted with a new disease, they tend to blame it on a set population, delaying public health responses for the broader community,” she said. “This is true whether we look at 19th-century outbreaks of cholera, the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, or the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. People tend to find comfort in thinking only some will be able to transmit and catch a disease, even when that is often not the case.”

Rating the 1918 Austin response

By the end of October 1918, state health officials had said the flu was dying out in the southern part of Texas.

A Statesman editorial in early November ran under the headline “Epidemic Under Control,” although the disease returned in early 1919.

“It is not remembered in this country when so many people were ill at one time,” the unsigned Statesman editorial read, “nor when death claimed so many victims in so short of time.”

At least one historian rated the regional response to the health care crisis a relative success.

“Perhaps the main thing to take away from 1918 is that Austin — and, indeed, Texas — dealt with a global pandemic quite effectively, considering the resources and reach of the authorities,” UT scholar Wright said. “Ultimately, Texans kept calm and carried on, which is one of the reasons we don’t really remember it any more in terms of our collective memory. I think that should provoke reassurance rather than panic.”

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