Osawatomie Mental Hospital (#7 in a series)
Osawatomie, Kansas was a pivotal settlement in the days leading up to the Civil War in terms of whether the state would retain a "free state" mentality or convert over to the pro-slavery stance that neighboring Missouri possessed. John Brown was from Osawatomie. In recognition for Osawatomie's part in ensuring Kansas remained a free state, the Kansas Legislature established the Osawatomie State Mental Hospital in 1863, the first mental hospital west of the Mississippi River. It admitted its first patient in 1866, and is still operational. Many of the original buuildings still stand, ghostly vacant shells and reminders of the days of obsolete and sometimes inhumane treatment of what was diagnosed as mental illness in the nineteenth century. New, modern facilities exist today alongside the image shown here. Of course those buildings are of no photographic interest to me.
Osawatomie Mental Hospital (#7 in a series)
Osawatomie, Kansas was a pivotal settlement in the days leading up to the Civil War in terms of whether the state would retain a "free state" mentality or convert over to the pro-slavery stance that neighboring Missouri possessed. John Brown was from Osawatomie. In recognition for Osawatomie's part in ensuring Kansas remained a free state, the Kansas Legislature established the Osawatomie State Mental Hospital in 1863, the first mental hospital west of the Mississippi River. It admitted its first patient in 1866, and is still operational. Many of the original buuildings still stand, ghostly vacant shells and reminders of the days of obsolete and sometimes inhumane treatment of what was diagnosed as mental illness in the nineteenth century. New, modern facilities exist today alongside the image shown here. Of course those buildings are of no photographic interest to me.