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Featured Article Of The Week
Gowanda State Hospital
Gowanda State Hospital was built by the architectural firm of Esenwein and Johnson who had an architectural practice in Buffalo, New York. The firm was administered by August Carl Esenwein (1856 – 1926) and James Addison Johnson (1865 –1939). They were the architects for Gowanda State Hospital from 1896 to 1912. Gowanda Osteopathic Hospital opened its first building in 1896 upon the 500 acre tract removed from the Taylor Farm by the state of New York. Taylor had previously bequested this acreage to his many nieces and nephews.
Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital West Group was described in the 1930s as having 1,254 beds, having treated 1,429 patients that year by 6 house staff, with the result of a history of 4.1% deaths. There are also 10 homeopathic physicians working as consultants from the western New York area. Patients were treated under strict Homeopathic auspices. The medical complex consisted of two-story wings projecting from the main building, two three-story pavilion style buildings, two pavilions for patients with tuberculosis (TB), power house, laundry, kitchen, main dining room building, and smaller dining rooms in several buildings, farm, workshops, nurses home, store room, amusement hall/auditorium, main staff house, and superintendent’s resident -- all built prior to 1946.
GSH also had a Hospital Nursing School, which trained employees for the facility. A graduate program was held every year on the hospital grounds in September. It included an overture, processional, invocation, solo by a singer, address, presentation of new nurses, the administration of the Nurses’ oath, and a benediction in the program. Nurse uniforms were the traditional nurses’ white cap and a seersucker dress with a white apron. The average class was coed. Many of the orderlies at GSH were Seneca Indians who lived on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation property that abutted the state hospital property. The hospital maintained an archery range, a three-hole full sized golf course, a pond stocked with fish, and a recreational center with movies shown in two showings on Saturdays. Click here for more...
