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

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|Title= Lapeer State Home
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|Title= Harlem Valley State Hospital
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|Body= In August 1893, Gov. John T. Rich, an Elba Township native, named a committee to decide the location of a state home for the feeble minded. Lapeer was in the running along with Saginaw, Bay City, Charlotte and Greenville. Lapeer was selected, partly because of the creek running through the property. It was thought the creek would be handy for sewage disposal, but a neighbor didn’t like that idea and the city ended up having to extend a sewer line to the property. The Michigan Home for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic opened in June 1895, and there were more than 1,000 applications for employment prior to its opening. Later that year, in November, there were 91 male and 40 female inmates.
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|Body= One day after the incorporation of the Board of Managers, Harlem Valley State Hospital came into being. It opened on April 24th, 1924 "for the care and treatment of the insane" as part of an act to discontinue the farm and industrial prison at Wingdale. Buildings A, B and C had already been constructed at the State Road (Route 22) site and money was soon requested to buy adjoining farmland and buildings to build a root cellar, dairy barn, piggery and poultry house for 3000 chickens. With 24 patients admitted on August 11 from New York City and Long Island, the hospital was ready to become part of the history of Harlem Valley.
  
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In 1910, a smallpox epidemic broke out at the asylum, and a company of the Flint National Guard camped out on the grounds that fall and winter to keep the disease contained to the asylum grounds. Many victims of the smallpox epidemic were buried in the now-forlorn cemetery at the southern edge of the grounds.
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Between 1925 and 1929, the certified capacity of the new hospital rose from 250 to 1294. During that time, the Board of Managers, which, in later years, became the Board of Visitors, approved changing the course of the State Route 22 so that it would skirt most of the grounds instead of running directly through. By 1928 Buildings F and H were competed and Kitchen G was readied. In addition, tennis courts were built, physical culture classes were started and a baseball team for employees was organized. Then, by 1929 new staff quarters were completed and a switchboard was installed that served for 60 years. In the fall of the year, the School of Nursing, constructed in 1926, opened on September 23 with 14 enrolled. [[Harlem Valley State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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By 1919, there were 1,560 patients, and patient load peaked at more than 4,600 in the middle of the century. The home was the largest in the state and one of the largest in the entire country, and it was the largest employer in Lapeer County. Treatment options for the “feeble-minded” were changing by then, and the number of residents began its final decrease. By 1976 there were fewer than 1,500 patients but a record 1,386 employees.
 
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The facility had a number of different names during its operation: The Michigan Home for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, the Michigan Home and Training School, the Lapeer State Home and Training School and, finally, the Oakdale Regional Center for Developmental Disabilities. Many who remember it now either refer to it as simply “the State Home” or “Oakdale.” [[Lapeer State Home|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 03:25, 15 September 2019

Featured Article Of The Week

Harlem Valley State Hospital


Harlem.jpg

One day after the incorporation of the Board of Managers, Harlem Valley State Hospital came into being. It opened on April 24th, 1924 "for the care and treatment of the insane" as part of an act to discontinue the farm and industrial prison at Wingdale. Buildings A, B and C had already been constructed at the State Road (Route 22) site and money was soon requested to buy adjoining farmland and buildings to build a root cellar, dairy barn, piggery and poultry house for 3000 chickens. With 24 patients admitted on August 11 from New York City and Long Island, the hospital was ready to become part of the history of Harlem Valley.

Between 1925 and 1929, the certified capacity of the new hospital rose from 250 to 1294. During that time, the Board of Managers, which, in later years, became the Board of Visitors, approved changing the course of the State Route 22 so that it would skirt most of the grounds instead of running directly through. By 1928 Buildings F and H were competed and Kitchen G was readied. In addition, tennis courts were built, physical culture classes were started and a baseball team for employees was organized. Then, by 1929 new staff quarters were completed and a switchboard was installed that served for 60 years. In the fall of the year, the School of Nursing, constructed in 1926, opened on September 23 with 14 enrolled. Click here for more...

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