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

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|Title= Chicago State Hospital
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|Title= Terrell State Hospital
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|Body= The old insane department was of brick, with small barred windows, iron doors, and heavy wooden doors outside, with apertures and hinged shutters for passing food. The cells were about seven by eight feet; they were not heated, except by a stove in the corridor, which did not raise the temperature in some of them above freezing point; the cold, however, did not freeze out the vermin with which the beds, walls, and floors were alive. The number of cells in this department was 21, 10 on the lower floor and 11 on the upper floor; many of them contained two beds,
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|Body= In 1883, when word was circulated that the State of Texas was seeking a location for a second major mental facility and that it would be located in Northeast Texas, the competition among cities must have been quite similar to the quest for industry and other major developments that exist today.
  
The other buildings were all frame; they were more like barns or barracks-immense areas of bare floors, crowded with cheap iron strap bedsteads. The heating was insufficient; there was no ventilation; the arrangements for bathing were so imperfect, there is no hot water, that during the winter months, the inmates were not bathed; even in summer the number of tubs was too small and they were inconveniently located. There were no halls in these buildings, the entire space is divided into rooms; the stairways were either outside or in the center of the room.
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Terrell was fortunate at that time to include among the citizens of a still young town a large group of people with the foresight to understand what such a facility could mean to a growing city. But even the farsightedness of legendary rancher and banker Col. Jim Harris, who gave the necessary acreage to the state for a meager return, could not have visualized the proportions to which Terrell State Hospital has grown today nor the immense impact it has had on the local economy for over 100 years.
  
In the report for 1878 it is stated that the Cook County poorhouse: is a rookery and should be torn down." John G. Cochrane, the architect, drew the plans for additional buildings for the infirmary, and the county adopted the designs he submitted on the 22d of September, 1881.  [[Chicago State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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A total of $200,000 was appropriated for the purchase of the property and construction of the original facilities. It all began, officially, on February 16, 1883, when the 18th Texas Legislature enacted a statute introduced by Judge John Austin. The word "asylum"--by the original definition--was a place of refuge and safety and that, at best, was the primary service offered by mental facilities in the United States at that time.
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Governor John Ireland commissioned the purchase of 672.65 acres of land located east of Terrell and offered by Jim Harris. This would be site for the branch asylum and the new institution was to be known as North Texas Lunatic Asylum. Its stated purpose was to provide treatment and care for the "chronic incurable insane" of the state's northern counties.  [[Terrell State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Latest revision as of 04:21, 23 June 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Terrell State Hospital


Tsh4.jpg

In 1883, when word was circulated that the State of Texas was seeking a location for a second major mental facility and that it would be located in Northeast Texas, the competition among cities must have been quite similar to the quest for industry and other major developments that exist today.

Terrell was fortunate at that time to include among the citizens of a still young town a large group of people with the foresight to understand what such a facility could mean to a growing city. But even the farsightedness of legendary rancher and banker Col. Jim Harris, who gave the necessary acreage to the state for a meager return, could not have visualized the proportions to which Terrell State Hospital has grown today nor the immense impact it has had on the local economy for over 100 years.

A total of $200,000 was appropriated for the purchase of the property and construction of the original facilities. It all began, officially, on February 16, 1883, when the 18th Texas Legislature enacted a statute introduced by Judge John Austin. The word "asylum"--by the original definition--was a place of refuge and safety and that, at best, was the primary service offered by mental facilities in the United States at that time.

Governor John Ireland commissioned the purchase of 672.65 acres of land located east of Terrell and offered by Jim Harris. This would be site for the branch asylum and the new institution was to be known as North Texas Lunatic Asylum. Its stated purpose was to provide treatment and care for the "chronic incurable insane" of the state's northern counties. Click here for more...