Our Arklahoma Heritage: The Newton County pioneering doctor whose grandson became a business magnet

William Austin Bradley practiced medicine in Newton County for more than five decades and became one of the most enduring figures in the remote Ozark community centered on Jasper.

Born on June 8, 1871, near Snowball in neighboring Searcy County, he was the son of Alfred Anderson Bradley and Mary Caroline Blair Bradley. He attended Emory University Medical School in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated in 1895. That same year he moved to Jasper, a town of only 242 residents according to the 1910 census, and established his medical practice in Jackson Township northwest of Snowball.

In 1896, Bradley married Cora Moss. When her father, Joseph B. Moss, died in 1905, Bradley purchased the two-story Victorian house that Moss had built in 1892 at 403 West Clark Street in Jasper.

The house served as both family home and medical office. Patients entered through the downstairs front room, where Bradley kept his medical instruments, a roll-top desk, and a pot-bellied stove for heat during long winter consultations.

The family occupied the upstairs rooms and the rear of the house.

Bradley and Cora raised five children there: Mary Stella, born in February 1898; William Theodore, born in September 1900; Joe A., born in 1908; Dorothy M., born in September 1911; and Rose Catherine, born in 1915. They also raised three of their grandchildren, the children of their daughter Dorothy.

Bradley made house calls throughout Newton County by horse and buggy in the early years and later by automobile. He treated injuries, illnesses, and childbirths for hundreds of families scattered across rugged hills and hollows. He supplemented his initial training with graduate courses at the University of Tennessee and the University of Arkansas. Cora supported his work as a member of the Ladies Medical Society Auxiliary.

In 1941, at the beginning of World War II, Bradley and Cora sold the Jasper house and moved to Harrison. He continued practicing medicine until his death on November 21, 1955, at age 84. By that time he had provided 57 years of service as a physician.

The house at 403 West Clark Street stood vacant for decades after the family left, but retained its connection to local medical history. Newton County later named a park in Bradley's honor in recognition of his long service.

The Victorian structure now operates as the Bradley House Museum and headquarters of the Newton County Historical Society.

William Austin Bradley died on November 21, 1955, at the age of 84 in Harrison. where he and Cora had lived since selling their Jasper home in 1941. He was buried at Maplewood Cemetery in Harrison.

Cora , his wife of nearly 60 years, survived him and remained connected to the family’s Newton County roots through her children and grandchildren. She died on February 12, 1967, at the age of 88 and was buried beside her husband.

Their graves rest together in the cemetery, marking the end of a long partnership that had sustained medical service and family life in the Ozark hills for decades.

Bradley’s daughter Dorothy married Paul Stiritz in Jasper on April 7, 1930. Their son William P. Stiritz was born in Jasper on July 1, 1934, and spent part of his early childhood living with his grandparents.

That direct experience in the Bradley household placed Stiritz in the immediate line of influence from the country doctor who had delivered care to generations of Newton County families.

Stiritz later joined Ralston Purina in 1964 and rose through the ranks to serve as president, chief executive officer, and chairman from 1981 to 1997. During his leadership he streamlined operations by divesting low-margin commodity businesses such as livestock feed and soybean processing while concentrating resources on higher-margin consumer brands, including Purina pet foods.

Under his direction the company’s stock price rose fifteenfold, far outpacing the broader market. In the early 1990s, Stiritz provided the funds that enabled the Newton County Historical Society to purchase his grandfather’s former home and convert it into the Bradley House Museum, preserving local history in the building where Bradley once treated patients.