Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Agnews State Hospital
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|Title= Montana State Hospital
|Image= Agnews5.png
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|Image= Montana State Hosp PC1.jpg
 
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|Body= Today known as the world famous Sun Microsystems/Agnews Developmental Center, the campus-like setting of the former Agnews Insane Asylum consists of a grouping of numerous reinforced concrete, brick, stucco and tile buildings. They are constructed in large rectangular-shaped plans and designed in a Mediterranean Revival style. The buildings are formally placed within a landscaped garden of palms, pepper trees and vast lawns. The treatment of the insane in California dates from the earliest days of the Gold Rush. The first provisions for the insane were to lock them up with criminals in the ship Ephemia, purchased in 1849 by the City of San Francisco, and later to house them at the San Francisco marine hospital in 1850, used primarily for ailing seamen. In 1885 the Agnews Residential Facility was established by the California State Legislature as a neuropsychiatric institution for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Agnews, opened in 1889, was the third institution in the state established for the mentally ill. Twenty-one years later, the greatest tragedy of the 1906 earthquake in Santa Clara County took place at the old Agnews State Hospital. The multistory, unreinforced masonry building crumbled, killing over 100 patients.
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|Body= Prior to 1869, Montana Territory made no special provisions for mental patients, their care generally being left to regular hospitals. The Helena Weekly Herald in a September 19, 1867, article on the county hospital commented on the need for a territorial insane asylum, stating that the county hospital was not the proper place for a "lunatic."
  
The Institution was then redesigned in, what was then, a revolutionary cottage plan spreading the low-rise buildings along tree-lined streets in a manner that resembled a college campus. The Mediterranean Revival style buildings were constructed of concrete with tile roofs, decorative tile patterns, rustic wooden balconies, porch columns and banisters.[[Agnews State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Two years later the 6th Territorial Legislative Assembly passed a law authorizing an official territorial insane asylum to be owned and managed on a contract basis by private parties. A board of commissioners was established with one representative from each judicial district to oversee the asylum, establish rules for its operation, and perform periodic inspections. Until 1877 St. John's Hospital in Helena served as the territorial asylum. By 1874 it was accepting sufficient numbers of patients committed by Governor Benjamin Potts to require the construction of a separate building behind the main hospital.
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In 1877 Drs. Armistead H. Mitchell (1831-1898) and Charles F. Mussigbrod (d.1893), owners of a hotel and spa at Warm Springs, Montana, were awarded the contract for the care of the territory's mental patients. By 1886 the partners had expanded their operation from 160 acres to 1640 acres and from two buildings to thirty-two buildings, including a larger hotel, a house for convalescents, a separate building for violent patients, a large plunge pool, a laundry, storehouses, icehouses, and many other outbuildings. [[Montana State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 05:08, 29 November 2010

Featured Article Of The Week

Montana State Hospital


Montana State Hosp PC1.jpg

Prior to 1869, Montana Territory made no special provisions for mental patients, their care generally being left to regular hospitals. The Helena Weekly Herald in a September 19, 1867, article on the county hospital commented on the need for a territorial insane asylum, stating that the county hospital was not the proper place for a "lunatic."

Two years later the 6th Territorial Legislative Assembly passed a law authorizing an official territorial insane asylum to be owned and managed on a contract basis by private parties. A board of commissioners was established with one representative from each judicial district to oversee the asylum, establish rules for its operation, and perform periodic inspections. Until 1877 St. John's Hospital in Helena served as the territorial asylum. By 1874 it was accepting sufficient numbers of patients committed by Governor Benjamin Potts to require the construction of a separate building behind the main hospital.

In 1877 Drs. Armistead H. Mitchell (1831-1898) and Charles F. Mussigbrod (d.1893), owners of a hotel and spa at Warm Springs, Montana, were awarded the contract for the care of the territory's mental patients. By 1886 the partners had expanded their operation from 160 acres to 1640 acres and from two buildings to thirty-two buildings, including a larger hotel, a house for convalescents, a separate building for violent patients, a large plunge pool, a laundry, storehouses, icehouses, and many other outbuildings. Click here for more...