Dixmont State Hospital
Located in Pittsburgh, PA
Photo © 2005 Tom Kirsch, opacity.us
Dixmont State Hospital History
The old Dixmont hospital once went by the lengthy title of the "Department of the Insane in the Western Pennsylvania Hospital of Pittsburgh" when it was opened in 1862 with an initial population of 113 patients. It was one of the earlier asylums in the U.S. built on the Kirkbride plan, with three crooked wings stretching from each side of a central administration area; one wing for male and the other for female patients. By the end of the 1800s, the resident population grew to over 1,200 and a nursing school was established in 1895. In 1907, the hospital legally separated from the Western Pennsylvania Hospital and became known as Dixmont Hospital for the Insane, named after Dorothea Dix, a pioneer in advocating the humane treatment of the mentally ill.
As with most asylums in the country during this time, Dixmont became overcrowded to the point that it was not accepting new admissions. During the Great Depression, the hospital tried to sustain itself by paying employees with room and board rather than salaries, and sold any crafts made by patients for extra income. By 1946, the state stepped in to take control of the failing institution, and the name changed to the more familiar moniker Dixmont State Hospital.
Financial troubles still plagued the hospital until it finally closed in 1984. After being shuttered for some time, a fire partially destroyed the administration building, and the place became an easy target for anyone to do what they pleased. For 15 years the hospital sat decaying until a contractor named Ralph Stroyne bought the property (his many relatives once worked at the institution), but it was sold again to the Wal-mart corporation, where they planned to raze the buildings for a new department store.
As of 2006, the hospital had been demolished, even though the Kirkbride building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The precarious nature of the hill that it rested on proved to be a challenge for the Wal-mart developers, and eventually, led to an engineering disaster. The demolition and clearing of the parcel atop the hill caused a massive landslide in September 2006, which dumped 500,000 cubic yards of soil, rock and debris onto Route 65, closing it to traffic for some time. One year later, Wal-mart finally abandoned the plans to develop the site and it remains as an empty lot.