Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Henryton State Hospital

Friday, June 19, 2015

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"Henryton State Hospital, 2007.

The Henryton State Hospital complex, sprawling across the forested edge of Patapsco State Park in rural Maryland, was built in stages from 1922 to 1946, commissioned as a segregated tuberculosis sanatorium for the state’s African-American population.

Maryland’s Black community in the 1920s and 1930s suffered from tuberculosis at four times the rate of whites, who typically had less crowded living conditions and better nutrition, and therefore less exposure and better immune health at home for fending off an infection for which there were not yet any antibiotics to treat.

By the time the last buildings were finally completed for the originally crowded sanatorium, the epidemic had already calmed down, and the underpopulated complex was transformed into a long-term inpatient mental health facility. It was finally closed entirely in 1985.

Over the years Henryton has been ravaged by vandalism and suspicious fires more than by time and nature. The main building was bulldozed a few weeks ago, following several other arson-ravaged state-owned abandonments demolished in recent years over safety concerns. It is worth noting, given Henryton’s original purpose in providing patients fresh air to help them recover from respiratory illness, that the demolition process necessarily involves substantial asbestos abatement."

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