Dana Causey
Center Building at East Louisiana Mental Health System (ca 1848), Jackson, Louisiana (4)
The 44th Annual Jackson Assembly Antiques Show and Sale offered visitors the incredible opportunity to tour this magnificent, yet seldom seen structure.
The largest Grecian style building in the state and one of the oldest mental hospitals in continuous use.
From content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=...:
It used to be easy to get a close look one of the nation's first mental hospitals -- an asylum erected when it was radical to build a mental hospital that looked normal, recalls the president of the local historic preservation society.
It was one of the nation's first 10 mental hospitals when it opened in 1848 as the Insane Asylum of the State of Louisiana. More recently, it was known as East Louisiana State Hospital.
Now the campus has only one entrance. Visitors must sign in with identification, and are carefully monitored during their stay.
"It's a rare treat for people to come here, especially students of architecture," Woodyear said.
On Nov. 21, 1848, its first residents -- all 85 patients diagnosed as mentally ill at Charity Hospital in New Orleans -- arrived, traveling by steamboat up the Mississippi River to Bayou Sara, then by oxcart to the asylum.
Center Building at East Louisiana Mental Health System (ca 1848), Jackson, Louisiana (4)
The 44th Annual Jackson Assembly Antiques Show and Sale offered visitors the incredible opportunity to tour this magnificent, yet seldom seen structure.
The largest Grecian style building in the state and one of the oldest mental hospitals in continuous use.
From content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=...:
It used to be easy to get a close look one of the nation's first mental hospitals -- an asylum erected when it was radical to build a mental hospital that looked normal, recalls the president of the local historic preservation society.
It was one of the nation's first 10 mental hospitals when it opened in 1848 as the Insane Asylum of the State of Louisiana. More recently, it was known as East Louisiana State Hospital.
Now the campus has only one entrance. Visitors must sign in with identification, and are carefully monitored during their stay.
"It's a rare treat for people to come here, especially students of architecture," Woodyear said.
On Nov. 21, 1848, its first residents -- all 85 patients diagnosed as mentally ill at Charity Hospital in New Orleans -- arrived, traveling by steamboat up the Mississippi River to Bayou Sara, then by oxcart to the asylum.