Kirkbride Buildings Blog

Archive for September 26th, 2008

The Lost Kirkbrides: Central State Hospital

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Central State Hospital
Once again, Asylum Projects forum member Squad546 has discovered a Kirkbride building that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere before (including here:\). While scanning Sanborn Maps from around the country, Squad came across this example of everybody’s favorite kind of asylum building at Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia…

Originally known as the Central Lunatic Asylum, the hospital was founded in 1869, although it moved to its present location in Petersburg in 1885. That’s where the Kirkbride was built. It appears to have been demolished as I haven’t been able to find any trace of it in aerial photographs. The only possible image of the Kirkbride that I’ve been able to find online is on the Historic Asylums’ Central State Hospital page (direct link to image).

There’s a pretty thorough history of the institution on the University of Virginia Library web site. It’s kind of interesting that the hospital was originally created for the treatment of African-American patients only. While segregated mental hospitals weren’t a novelty in the past, this is the only one I know of that had a Kirkbride building.

Books on Amazon

The Art of Asylum Keeping The Eclipse of the State Mental Hospital The Mad Among Us America's Care of the Mentally Ill Angels in the Architecture The Architecture of Madness Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals The Eye of Danvers: A History of Danvers State Hospital
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