Portal:Featured Article Of The Week
Featured Article Of The Week
Willmar State Hospital
Built on an open farm field north of town, the Willmar Hospital Farm for Inebriates opened in 1912 with just 37 patients. Their treatment included working on the self sustaining farm where oats, barley, corn, timothy, vegetables and livestock where raised. During the hospital’s first 18 months, 84 inmates escaped, which “did little to alleviate the skepticism and stigma that had surrounded the new institution from the beginning.” The Willmar Hospital Farm for Inebriates was established by the state legislature in 1907 as Minnesota's second state hospital for alcoholics. (The first had been established in Rochester in 1873) The hospital was financed through a state tax of 2% on all liquor license fees, and opened in December of 1912 with 2 major buildings and a 500 acre farm site. Two years later, in July of 1914, there were 314 patients at Willmar.
In March of 1917, the hospital was renamed the Willmar State Asylum and “so-called hopeless or custodial care cases” who were destined to become lifelong wards of the state” were housed at the facility.
From 1919 through the early 1930s, buildings were added to the campus in a steady schedule of new construction in an attempt to keep pace with the increasing population. New cottages for men and women, an administration building and auditorium were built. Mentally-ill patients arrived in rail coaches from other hospitals in Minnesota, increasing the population to 1,471. In 1937 the name was changed to Willmar State Hospital. During and after World War Two, shortages of staff and money resulted in deteriorating conditions at the hospital. Reports said patients were “forgotten people” who were “crowded like animals” and slept in “dingy attics.” Click here for more...
