Insane Asylum History

Mental health facility marks 150 years

The state's first public mental health facility was called the Iowa Lunatic Asylum, which was completely acceptable when it opened in 1861.

Over the years, however, attitudes and ideas about mental illness progressed. Today, the role of the facility - now called the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute - has changed sharply.

But the facility has a rich history and as its staff prepare to observe the 150th anniversary of the site with an open house Friday, state officials are hoping the public will share stories or photos from the past.

"There is really so much here and the more you look at the history, the more fascinating it is," said activity therapist Talisa Jacobs, who is an anniversary project coordinator.

The open house, from 2 to 6 p.m., will feature exhibits on topics such as the history of treatment, how it compares to current treatment practices and noteworthy events over the years, Jacobs said.

The main building on the original site, which burned to the ground in 1936, was an impressive landmark for decades. Designed by Thomas Kirkbride, a well-known East Coast-based advocate of more dignified treatment for the mentally ill, the facility opened just before the Civil War.

Joy Conwell, an Iowa Wesyleyan librarian, who is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m. Friday, told Jacobs that the facility was a tourist attraction for decades after it opened.

"There are reports of how people actually rode the train to Mount Pleasant to view the hospital and its inhabitants," Jacobs said, adding that the building's 140-foot-high cupola stretching high above the prairie landscape was regarded as one of the more spectacular structural marvels in Iowa.

The second public mental health facility west of the Mississippi (Missouri opened its facility in 1860), the Iowa hospital was pressed into service as the United States opened its western territories.

"Sometimes there were people traveling with wagon trains who couldn't get care and so they were left at the facilities here in Iowa," Jacob said.

Today, the site, which reached it peak occupancy in the 1940s with 1,581 patients, is mostly a medium security prison, while the mental health portion of the campus has a few dozen beds.

The history of Detroit and Michigan, or, the metropolis illustrated ; a chronological cyclopaedia of the past and present, including a full record of territorial days in Michigan, and the annals of Wayne county

History of the Northwest's first insane asylum

Behind the scenes, or, Life in an insane asylum

Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences

The Boston medical and surgical journal