Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute

The Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute was a psychiatric institution located in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Originally known as the Iowa Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1861. It is located on the same campus as The Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility. There was also a labyrinth of underground tunnels which connect every building. Like most asylums of its time, it had a gruesome and dark history. Remnants of this are the graveyard, hydrotherapy tubs, and lobotomy equipment. It was the first asylum in Iowa and was built under the Kirkbride Plan. It was the only hospital in Iowa to be closed after a massive fire destroyed most of the building and left the rest of the complex beyond repair.

History

It was constructed in 1855 at a cost of $400,000. The first patient was admitted in February 1861. It is a Kirkbride building, and was the first asylum in Iowa. Over the years, the name was changed to the Mount Pleasant State Hospital due to housing of drug addicts, geriatrics, alcoholics, etc. The Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute is the oldest of the four Iowa Department of Human Services facilities serving persons affected by mental illness. In 1936, however; a devastating fire broke out and destroyed much of the buildings, leaving the rest of the buildings beyond repair. The only thing the fire really spared was a kitchen area in the back. In 1946, the facility reached its peak occupancy of 1,581 patients. Since 1945 however, new therapies and medications had helped decrease the facility's population, and the individual's average length of stay has been reduced from years to a matter of weeks. This allowed the facility to release many of its patients and eventually reassign the patients to the hospitals in Cherokee, Iowa, Clarinda, Iowa, and Independence, Iowa, all three of which still stand and are in use today. It is known by many names. Some of these include: the Mount Pleasant Insane Asylum, the Mount Pleasant Hospital for the Insane, and the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute.

External links

• http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/mountpleasant/

References

• http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/mountpleasant/