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

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|Title= Lapeer State Home
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|Title= San Antonio 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= In 1889 the Texas legislature passed a bill establishing a state mental institution to serve Southwest Texas. The new facility was to occupy at least 640 acres and be capable of housing 500 patients. It was to be known as the Southwestern Insane Asylum (not the Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, as it has sometimes been called). A site was selected five miles south of San Antonio and $200,000 was appropriated for the new hospital. The facility began operation on April 6, 1892 with a capacity of 200 patients.
  
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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In the first eight months of operation the patient population grew to 142. By August 23, 1894, there were 225 patients. Provisions for 300 more patients were authorized when $70,000 was appropriated in 1898, and in 1910, $100,000 was voted for expansion to accommodate an additional 300. This addition consisted of one wing each on the male and female departments and two buildings for tubercular. The improvements were completed in 1910 and the hospital could then accommodate 1,000 patients. In 1911 another appropriation of $45,000 was given to construct a building for 100 men, providing care to acute cases and all those who require extra attention. By 1912 the facilities could accommodate 1,140, and improvements were valued at $500,000. By 1915 the hospital's capacity was 1,800. In 1917 a training school for nurses in psychiatry was begun. This school, the only one of its kind in the state system, continued with a three-year course until 1942. [[San Antonio State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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.
 
 
 
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 03:37, 7 March 2021

Featured Article Of The Week

San Antonio State Hospital


SanAntonioTX SH PC 01 WEBEDIT.jpg

In 1889 the Texas legislature passed a bill establishing a state mental institution to serve Southwest Texas. The new facility was to occupy at least 640 acres and be capable of housing 500 patients. It was to be known as the Southwestern Insane Asylum (not the Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, as it has sometimes been called). A site was selected five miles south of San Antonio and $200,000 was appropriated for the new hospital. The facility began operation on April 6, 1892 with a capacity of 200 patients.

In the first eight months of operation the patient population grew to 142. By August 23, 1894, there were 225 patients. Provisions for 300 more patients were authorized when $70,000 was appropriated in 1898, and in 1910, $100,000 was voted for expansion to accommodate an additional 300. This addition consisted of one wing each on the male and female departments and two buildings for tubercular. The improvements were completed in 1910 and the hospital could then accommodate 1,000 patients. In 1911 another appropriation of $45,000 was given to construct a building for 100 men, providing care to acute cases and all those who require extra attention. By 1912 the facilities could accommodate 1,140, and improvements were valued at $500,000. By 1915 the hospital's capacity was 1,800. In 1917 a training school for nurses in psychiatry was begun. This school, the only one of its kind in the state system, continued with a three-year course until 1942. Click here for more...