Mrs. Adair’s Good Works

Mrs. Cornelia Ritchie Adair’s kindly local reputation in Texas is largely based on some public works. For one thing, she wasn’t John Adair, whose arrogance turns off the cowboys and partner Charles Goodnight alike. Adair dies in St. Louis in 1885. In 1888, she founds “Saint’s Roost” in Clarendon, on the other end of the canyon, as a place where her alcoholic cowboys might return to sobriety, as well as an early-day YMCA. In 1910, the site develops into the Adair Hospital. Today, the name “Adair” overhangs the entrance of the Saint’s Roost Museum, within the former hospital building.