Pennsylvania State Hospitals


The Pennsylvania State Hospital System is a network of psychiatric hospitals operated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. At its peak in the late 1940s the system operated more than twenty hospitals and served over 43,000 patients. fewer than nine sites remain in use, and many of those serve far fewer patients than they once did. Many facilities or portions of facilities no longer in use for psychiatric treatment have been repurposed to other uses, while some have been demolished.
The first facility in the Pennsylvania State Hospital system, Harrisburg State Hospital, opened in 1845 and from its inception was tasked with providing care for mentally ill persons throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Many facilities within the system were state-operated from the start, while some initially operated as county poor farms, county hospitals, or other institutions.
As the number of institutionalized mentally ill dwindled many state hospitals have been, in whole or in part, converted to other uses. Many have remained state-operated facilities, such as office buildings or correctional centers. A few former state hospitals have been completely demolished.

Plans

Most state hospitals consisted of a number of individual buildings spread across an often rural "campus." Most can be characterized as falling into one of several "plans" or designs.

Kirkbride plan

Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-19th century. Kirkbride developed his requirements based on a philosophy of Moral Treatment. The typical floor plan, with long rambling wings arranged "en echelon", was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients. The building form itself was meant to have a curative effect. These asylums tended to become large, imposing, Victorian-era institutional buildings within extensive surrounding grounds which often included farmland. By 1900 the notion of "building-as-cure" was largely discredited, and in the following decades these facilities became too expensive to maintain.

Cottage plan

By the middle of the nineteenth century, some doctors complained that large monolithic asylums had not lived up to their expectations. But psychiatrists did not immediately abandon their belief in the therapeutic environment; instead, they argued for a different therapeutic environment. Clinging to a belief that architecture influenced human conduct, they proposed smaller cottage-like structures to replace the Kirkbride-plan hospitals. These cottages were to be arranged in a village, an homage to the Belgian town of Gheel, where citizens looked after mentally ill people who for centuries gathered there to worship at the shrine of St. Dymphna, the patron saint of lunatics.

Echelon plan

Payton plan

List of Pennsylvania State Hospitals

HospitalLocationOpenedPeak PopulationPeak YearCurrent PopulationStatusPlansNotes
Allentown State HospitalAllentown191220121950n/aclosed 2010Payton-
Clarks Summit State HospitalScranton193810461947activeCottageoriginated in 1862 as a poor farm
Danville State HospitalDanville187229161947163 activeKirkbride-
Dixmont State HospitalEmsworth18629731947n/aclosed 1984, demolished 2006Kirkbride-
Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric InstitutePhiladelphian/aclosed 1981Cottage-
Embreeville State HospitalEmbreeville189810171955n/aclosed 1980Cottageoriginated as county poor house
Farview State HospitalWaymartc 191210961947repurposednow a correctional facility
Harrisburg State HospitalHarrisburg185124411947n/aclosed 2006Kirkbride, Cottage-
Haverford State HospitalHaverfordc 19645621987n/aclosed 1998
demolished 2008		Cottage-
Hollidaysburg State HospitalHollidaysburg19383691947n/aclosed 1979Cottageoriginally opened in 1904 as Blair County Hospital for Mental Diseases
Lawrence Frick State HospitalCresson1916closed 1984, repurposedCottagenow a correctional facility
Marcy State HospitalPittsburgh1915closed 1982Cottage-
Mayview State HospitalPittsburgh193837851967n/aclosed 2008.
demolished 2012		cottagebegan in 1892 as
Norristown State HospitalNorristown188049541947activeEchelon-
Philadelphia State HospitalPhiladelphia19077000+1960n/aclosed 1990. demolished 2006Cottage-
Polk State SchoolPolk1897active--
Retreat State HospitalNewport Township193811031947n/aclosed 1980, repurposedCottagebegan in 1878 as a poor house, now a correctional facility
Scranton State HospitalScrantonn/aclosed, demolished 1991single building
Somerset State HospitalSomerset19384631947n/aclosedcottageBegan as county poor farm. Is now converted to a Correctional facility
South Mountain Restoration CenterMont Alto190711001970activecottagealso known as Samuel G. Dixon State Hospital
Torrance State HospitalDerry Township191933001950s229 activeCottage-
Warren State HospitalWarren188025621947activeKirkbride-
Wernersville State HospitalWernersville189118511947activeCottage-
Western Psychiatric Institute of PittsburghPittsburgh|Was never a custodial "state hospital" but a freestanding Psychiatric Hospital and was and still is an acute care setting affiliated with Pitt for years prior to becoming part of UPMC|repurposedsingle buildingNow part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-
Woodville State HospitalCarnegie18543200n/aclosed 1992, demolishedCottage-

Pennsylvania State General Hospitals

During the late 1800s, the State built many hospitals for coal miners in Pennsylvania, these hospitals were also referred to as State Hospitals for Miners. These hospitals were not built as psychiatric facilities, but rather as general medical hospitals. In 1985, Pennsylvania began the transfer of these hospitals from State ownership into private or community facilities. As of 1992, all have been divested from State ownership.

State Hospitals for Miners