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

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{{FAformat
|Title= Bolivar State Hospital
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|Title= Weston State Hospital
|Image= Bolivar_State_Hospital_2.jpg
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|Image= Westsh.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= Opened to receive patients on November 22, 1889, the then denoted "West Tennessee Hospital for the Insane" was designed by architect Harry P. MacDonald of Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee. The MacDonald firm was responsible for many fine, large public buildings in the South, such as the Sevier County Courthouse in Sevierville, Tennessee (1896). The institution was intended not only to meet the mental health needs of the Western Section of the State, but also to complete Tennessee's first efforts at implementing a social policy initiated before the Civil War. Tennessee initiated its public policy regarding the institutionalization of the mentally-ill in the 1840s. The "lunatic asylum" in Nashville soon proved inadequate and architect Adolphus Heiman produced a Gothic Revival design following the advice of Thomas S. Kirkbride.
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|Body= This was West Virginia's first public institution. Its construction was begun by the State of Virginia before the separation of West Virginia from the mother state, the first appropriation having been made by the Legislature of Virginia, March 22, 1858. The institution was opened October 22, 1859, when nine patients were brought from Ohio, where they had been in temporary care awaiting the completion of the hospital. Dr. R. Hills, formerly of the Central Ohio Insane Asylum, was made superintendent and Dr. N. B. Barnes, assistant.
  
By 1892, 319 patients were living in the mental hospital. Entertainment, work, diet, and discipline were still considered the main types of therapy. In 1900 the hospital was overcrowded with 594 patients. It was continually being modernized and around 1910 a new wing was built. When weather allowed, the unfinished wing was used as sleeping quarters for several patients. Other additions to the facility were constructed in the 1920s. These included a tubercular hospital or ward and a congregate dining room. In 1927 the two story brick Doctors' Apartment Building was constructed, while an adjacent frame cottage was built by the family of a former patient. These structures emphasize the growth of professional medical staff as well as changes in therapies in treating the mentally ill.  [[Bolivar State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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In the first years of its history the institution was encompassed with many difficulties. Not only were there financial troubles, but Confederate soldiers in a raid appropriated the blankets belonging to the patients, and in a second raid a ward was destroyed. The people of Weston very generously came to the rescue and contributed their own blankets to fill the temporary needs, public acknowledgment of which was made by the superintendent in his report. In 1868 the population of the hospital was 40; since that date there has been a continual increase in the number of inmates, and a corresponding increase in the appropriation for running expenses, until at the present time the population of the institution is 1023.
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The grounds belonging to the hospital contain about 335 acres, and front about 2000 feet on the West Fork River, opposite the town of Weston, and extend back to the north to a depth sufficient for this acreage. With the exception of the site on which the buildings are located, which extends back from the river about 800 feet, the land is very steep and entirely unsuitable for tillage. A very small portion of it is used for gardening, but in the main it is used for grazing.  [[Weston State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:55, 25 June 2023

Featured Article Of The Week

Weston State Hospital


Westsh.jpg

This was West Virginia's first public institution. Its construction was begun by the State of Virginia before the separation of West Virginia from the mother state, the first appropriation having been made by the Legislature of Virginia, March 22, 1858. The institution was opened October 22, 1859, when nine patients were brought from Ohio, where they had been in temporary care awaiting the completion of the hospital. Dr. R. Hills, formerly of the Central Ohio Insane Asylum, was made superintendent and Dr. N. B. Barnes, assistant.

In the first years of its history the institution was encompassed with many difficulties. Not only were there financial troubles, but Confederate soldiers in a raid appropriated the blankets belonging to the patients, and in a second raid a ward was destroyed. The people of Weston very generously came to the rescue and contributed their own blankets to fill the temporary needs, public acknowledgment of which was made by the superintendent in his report. In 1868 the population of the hospital was 40; since that date there has been a continual increase in the number of inmates, and a corresponding increase in the appropriation for running expenses, until at the present time the population of the institution is 1023.

The grounds belonging to the hospital contain about 335 acres, and front about 2000 feet on the West Fork River, opposite the town of Weston, and extend back to the north to a depth sufficient for this acreage. With the exception of the site on which the buildings are located, which extends back from the river about 800 feet, the land is very steep and entirely unsuitable for tillage. A very small portion of it is used for gardening, but in the main it is used for grazing. Click here for more...