Ohio State Hospital photograph   Save
Ohio Department of Industrial and Economic Development
Description: This photograph shows an aerial view of Columbus State Hospital, which was located on West Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio. Situated in a large wooded area, the hospital campus consisted of a central facility with many interconnected wings and several outbuildings. The Columbus State Hospital, a facility for the care and treatment of mentally ill people, admitted its first patient in 1877. This facility replaced the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, which the Ohio General Assembly established in 1835. The asylum's board of trustees chose a 64-acre site on East Broad Street in Columbus. Erected primarily by the labor of Ohio Penitentiary convicts, the hospital received its first patients in November 1838. (The Ohio Lunatic Asylum had replaced the Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum at Cincinnati, established in 1821, as the state mental institution.) Built with a capacity for 150 patients, the Ohio Lunatic Asylum soon became overcrowded. Part of the hospital was destroyed by fire in November 1868. In April 1869 the legislature laid plans for a new structure to accommodate 500 patients. The new hospital, built on the "Kirkbride Plan," was under construction from 1870 to 1877. The structure represented the largest single public capital investment by the State of Ohio up to that time, with the exception of the Statehouse. The main building contained over 800 rooms and was said to be the largest building under one roof until the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., was constructed. In 1996, after years of neglect, the Administration Building was demolished. Over the decades, these two facilities operated under various names: Ohio Lunatic Asylum, Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum, Central Ohio Hospital for the Insane, Columbus Hospital for the Insane, and Columbus State Hospital. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05700
Subjects: Columbus State Hospital (Ohio); Ohio History--State and Local Government; Mental illness--Treatment--Ohio; Aerial views; Architecture--Ohio
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)