Domestic trouble, religious excitement, opium addiction, intemperance, heredity, old age, and epilepsy
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
The raving, incoherence, and sense of something amiss, I came to understand later in my own family.
At least twice in my childhood, my mother suffered "episodes" and was committed (I think voluntarily) to the Colorado State Hospital, in Pueblo.
At least twice in my childhood, my mother suffered "episodes" and was committed (I think voluntarily) to the Colorado State Hospital, in Pueblo.
This is the same place that sported the original cornerstone reading "Colorado State Insane Asylum," which now resides in the museum there.
Originally opened 1879, what was once known as the Colorado State Insane Asylum, became the Colorado State Hospital in the early 1900s, before being reincarnated as the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and a museum.
"In its heydey, the Colorado Mental Health Institute was home to over six thousand patients and was an oasis of healing set amongst verdant fields and charming farms. The philosophy of mental health back in the early 1900s was to isolate and separate patients from society. That approach to mental health changed dramatically in 1962 when leaps in medication and treatment would allow for less restrictive mental health facilities," says a recent Atlas Obscura story.
"In the late 1800s and early 1900s a patient was admitted to the insane asylum or psychiatric institute for essentially any crisis of behavior or personal circumstance: domestic trouble, religious excitement, opium addiction, intemperance, heredity, old age, and epilepsy. The Colorado State Insane Asylum (later known as the Colorado State Hospital) was built in Pueblo in 1879 to house these individuals. Alcoholism was the primary diagnosis for the vast majority of those from sent to the insane asylum in late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Alcohol abuse remained a frequent diagnosis in the 1940s and 1950s. The early hospital accepted the “better safe than sorry” perspective on institutionalization by admitting anyone who seemed to have behavioral problems," says information from the Colorado Mental Health Institute Museum.
Because the early twentieth-century medical community and a society widely informed by physicians’ professional perspective envisioned an extensive array of mental illnesses, so many patients entered in the 1930s that the state mental facility in Pueblo was extremely overcrowded. Although its original construction anticipated a capacity of 2500 patients, the hospital in fact housed about 4000, most of whom had no criminal convictions. Hospital beds overflowed into the hallways and disease spread rapidly. An outbreak of influenza in 1928 affected 321 patients; twenty died.
"Although epidemics of influenza and meningitis were exacerbated by overcrowding, patients at CSH who were psychically healthy enough to escape bodily illness and death were met with numerous rehabilitation programs. In the 1930s, hydrotherapy was an innovative technology. Occupational rehabilitation locations such as a dairy farm, laundry room, upholstery and sewing shop, and a metal shop were incorporated into the daily lives of the mental patients in the Pueblo facility. Special diets were also taken into account during mealtime, and the patients received adequate outdoor time on free grounds," according to Colorado College.
The Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, as it now is called, opened as the Colorado State Insane Asylum on October 23, 1879 on 40 acres of land in northwest Pueblo donated by George M. Chilcott, Colorado's first United States senator, according to AsylumProjects.org.
Originally opened 1879, what was once known as the Colorado State Insane Asylum, became the Colorado State Hospital in the early 1900s, before being reincarnated as the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and a museum.
"In its heydey, the Colorado Mental Health Institute was home to over six thousand patients and was an oasis of healing set amongst verdant fields and charming farms. The philosophy of mental health back in the early 1900s was to isolate and separate patients from society. That approach to mental health changed dramatically in 1962 when leaps in medication and treatment would allow for less restrictive mental health facilities," says a recent Atlas Obscura story.
"In the late 1800s and early 1900s a patient was admitted to the insane asylum or psychiatric institute for essentially any crisis of behavior or personal circumstance: domestic trouble, religious excitement, opium addiction, intemperance, heredity, old age, and epilepsy. The Colorado State Insane Asylum (later known as the Colorado State Hospital) was built in Pueblo in 1879 to house these individuals. Alcoholism was the primary diagnosis for the vast majority of those from sent to the insane asylum in late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Alcohol abuse remained a frequent diagnosis in the 1940s and 1950s. The early hospital accepted the “better safe than sorry” perspective on institutionalization by admitting anyone who seemed to have behavioral problems," says information from the Colorado Mental Health Institute Museum.
Because the early twentieth-century medical community and a society widely informed by physicians’ professional perspective envisioned an extensive array of mental illnesses, so many patients entered in the 1930s that the state mental facility in Pueblo was extremely overcrowded. Although its original construction anticipated a capacity of 2500 patients, the hospital in fact housed about 4000, most of whom had no criminal convictions. Hospital beds overflowed into the hallways and disease spread rapidly. An outbreak of influenza in 1928 affected 321 patients; twenty died.
"Although epidemics of influenza and meningitis were exacerbated by overcrowding, patients at CSH who were psychically healthy enough to escape bodily illness and death were met with numerous rehabilitation programs. In the 1930s, hydrotherapy was an innovative technology. Occupational rehabilitation locations such as a dairy farm, laundry room, upholstery and sewing shop, and a metal shop were incorporated into the daily lives of the mental patients in the Pueblo facility. Special diets were also taken into account during mealtime, and the patients received adequate outdoor time on free grounds," according to Colorado College.
The Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, as it now is called, opened as the Colorado State Insane Asylum on October 23, 1879 on 40 acres of land in northwest Pueblo donated by George M. Chilcott, Colorado's first United States senator, according to AsylumProjects.org.
"On that date, 11 patients were admitted, nine males and two females from 12 different counties of the state. In 1917, the insane asylum was renamed the Colorado State Hospital. By 1923, the census the hospital climbed to 2,422 and continued to grow until 1961 when the hospital had nearly 6,000 patients. Like many state psychiatric hospitals at that time, it was a self-contained city, providing all the patients' needs within 300 acres of land on the main grounds and 5,000 acres at the dairy farm.," says AsylumProjects.
"By 2005, however, the patient census declined to less than 450 patients, a result of the development of medications specifically for mental disorders, and a change in the philosophy and treatment of the mentally ill. The sign at the entrance still reads "Colorado State Hospital" although in 1991 the Colorado Department of Human Services psychiatric facilities names were changed to Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan."
"By 2005, however, the patient census declined to less than 450 patients, a result of the development of medications specifically for mental disorders, and a change in the philosophy and treatment of the mentally ill. The sign at the entrance still reads "Colorado State Hospital" although in 1991 the Colorado Department of Human Services psychiatric facilities names were changed to Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan."
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