The Lost Kirkbrides: Agnews State Hospital
Friday, November 14th, 2008
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been busy and haven’t heard anything noteworthy about Kirkbride buildings or related topics in a while. But just to keep things going, here’s another installment in The Lost Kirkbrides series: Agnews State Hospital, a Kirkbride building I found out about only recently…
Agnews State Hospital in Santa Clara, California opened in 1889 as The Great Asylum for the Insane. Its Kirkbride building stood for just seventeen years until the great earthquake of 1906 caused irreparable damage to the structure and the death of 117 people. The dead were buried in mass graves on the hospital grounds. The Kirkbride had to be torn down. It was replaced in 1911 by a new arrangement of buildings based on the Cottage Plan. (more…)
