Lorain County Infirmary

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Lorain County Infirmary
Opened 1868
Closed 1967
Building Style Single Building
Location Elyria, OH
Alternate Names
  • Lorain County Home




History

The facility was located on Murray Ridge Road in Elyria. It was built in 1868 on land the county commissioners purchased because it was central to the county and close to the county seat in Elyria, said Smith. It became a very large complex, a working farm, on more than 200 acres. A poorhouse was a place that provided people a place to go if they could no longer support themselves. Communities thought they were doing a good thing because it often cost less to have a facility for people than to try to support them in their own homes. In the 1900s the poorhouses gradually began to be known as the county home, a term used well past the middle of the twentieth century. Residents were transferred to an Amherst facility when the infirmary closed in 1967. It used to be a tuberculosis sanitarium. It is now a nursing home.