Patton State Hospital Museum

(Photo Credit: abc7)

In California, we don’t have many historical asylums left standing… in fact, we don’t have a lot of historical buildings at all (especially compared to the east coast).  Real estate is so prime that demolition seems to be the answer for everything.  Through my research, I learned about the Patton State Hospital in San Bernadino County, located about 2 hours away from me in Los Angeles and found out last year that they were opening a museum to honor the hospital’s history.  I could not have been more excited or anxious to go there!  I had been on the waiting list for months to get into this museum…finally I got an email telling me to pick a date and time.  Before I tell you about the museum, I want to give a little history about the hospital…

Patton State Hospital opened in 1893, originally called the Southern California State Asylum for the Insane and Inebriates, and was one of the last hospitals to be based on the Kirkbride Plan. The asylum was a massive, gothic structure.  In 1897, California passed a law that created a “Lunacy Commission” to oversee the hospital system and to change the names from “asylums” to “hospitals”.  In 1927, the name officially changed to Patton State Hospital.

Like most asylums, Patton had massive overcrowding… by the early 1900s, the hospital housed over 800 patients, by the early 1920s, had almost 2,200 patients, and by the mid-1950s had over 5,500 patients.  From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, California had the highest rate of individuals committed to an asylum in the country.  To alleviate the problem, many patients were sterilized and then released back into the community.  The thought was that if they couldn’t have children, they couldn’t “pass on their lunacy”.  Over 11,000 patients were sterilized in California; with over 4,500 being done at Patton State Hospital alone… no other state sterilized as many people as California.

In the early 1900s, Patton was growing extensively, so more buildings were added to the grounds; these were patient cottages.  Each cottage was separated by sex and held between 40 to 75 patients.  All of the hospital staff and their families would live on the grounds as well.  Patton also had its own farm, gardens, and industrial shops.  As Dr. Kirkbride indicated in his plan, the patients would work on the farms and shops as a form of therapy.  Patton State Hospital was its own self-sufficient town.  Earthquakes throughout the first half of the 1900s caused major damage to the original buildings, and many were demolished, including the Kirkbride building.

Treatments used at Patton State Hospital included hydrotherapy, Malaria fever therapy, insulin shock therapy, electroshock therapy, and the lobotomy.  Dr. Walter Freeman, the Lobotomist himself, performed many lobotomies there (yes, I will be doing a future post on Dr. Freeman). 

Because of the severe overcrowding and WWII, funds were cut short and the hospital fell into less than desirable conditions.  Communal areas in the hospital were now lined with beds and mattresses and patients certainly were not getting the care they needed.  But these deplorable conditions wouldn’t last forever.  In 1946, Dr. Otto Gericke became the superintendent of Patton and made great improvements to the hospital… in my opinion, he was ahead of his time, much like Dr. Kirkbride.  Gericke invited the community to come to open houses at the hospital, held many holiday events, and even put suggestion boxes in the patient wards!  By the end of the 1950s, Patton added many new buildings to the campus: an administration building, kitchen/cafeteria, auditorium, admissions building, patient units and a TB unit.

Deinstitutionalization caused for many patients to be released to the public, with many seeking community-based care, but others weren’t so lucky to get the care they needed.  Today, Patton State Hospital operates as a forensics unit for the criminally insane.

Now, onto the museum….

I was incredibly surprised at how much information and artifacts the museum had.  The building from the outside looks small, but don’t let that fool you…there is plenty to be seen inside.  The first room you enter has an old photo of the original Kirkbride with a piece of the building foundation.  Personally, this was extremely special, considering how few of the Kirkbride asylums are still standing today.  A timeline illustrates the hospital’s history, while souvenirs such as postcards sit in the glass cases below.

My favorite item there was an original orbitoclast actually used by Dr. Freeman at the hospital.  Anthony, the museum curator said he had found it hidden inside an old phone book as he was going through old stacks of papers!  When you look closely at the handle, you can see the words FREEMAN stamped on it.

There was also a post card not only filled out by Freeman saying “Merry Christmas”, but his picture on the front.

A story I found particularly interesting was that this bag of mail (below) was stolen by a patient, thrown into/onto the roof, and sat there for years.  Anthony found it as he was going through old portions of the facility for artifacts… it really is like finding a time capsule.

The museum also has a mock patient room set up so you can see how the patients lived, complete with their uniforms.

After the museum tour, I talked to Anthony, the curator, about Patton and the Kirkbride Asylums in general, for a long time.  His passion and dedication for the hospital’s history is truly amazing. 

I highly recommend making the trip to see this museum.

If you’re interested in a tour of PSH click here: http://www.dsh.ca.gov/Patton/Museum.aspx

-JM