Exploring the Oregon Museum of Mental Health

Kirkbride U, Oregon State Hospital

The one good thing to be said about the old Oregon State Hospital is that the dilapidated, decaying building was a real star maker. The movie shot there, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, swept the 1976 Academy Awards winning in all the major categories including Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director (Milos Forman).  Thirty years later, a series of articles published in The Oregonian describing the facility’s deplorable conditions and mistreatment of patient cremains won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

Hospital grounds

The hospital, originally called the Oregon State Insane Asylum, was built in 1883 on 130 acres in what was then rural Salem, but is now well within the city limits on busy Center St. The grand, Italianate, brick building was constructed in the style devised by Thomas Kirkbride, a leading advocate for the mentally ill. His plans included a central administration building connecting two separate wings for male and female patients.  Over the years, additional wings and buildings were added, and the hospital grew to a peak occupancy of 3475 patients in 1958.

As state funding for mental health declined, so did conditions at the facility until it reached a state described in The Oregonian with adjectives like “grim,” “decrepit,” and “dreary.”  Amid mounting concerns for patient safety in the event of an earthquake, a governor’s task force in 2004 concluded it was time to tear down the hospital and build a new one more in line with current practices in treating mental illness. A preservation group rallied to put the campus on the National Register of Historic Places, and the original administrative unit was saved from the wrecking ball and incorporated into the new design.

Today the restored Kirkbride building houses the Oregon Museum of Mental Health. While small in size, it’s chockfull of pictures, artifacts, documents and interactive materials offering visitors an unusual opportunity to explore the history of mental illness and its treatments over the years, as well as the specific story of the Oregon State Hospital.  The exhibit “Why Am I Here” highlights patients’ stories and offers startling statistics on the types of diagnosis from dementia, menopause, or alcoholism that might mean a lifelong commitment in the asylum.

Another exhibit features equipment used in treatment ranging from straightjackets, lobotomies, insulin and electric shocks to the more benign hydrotherapy and cosmotherapy, a treatment encouraging patients to look their best. A section of the 1948-1951 financial statement for the Cosmotherapy Department shows line items for 224 eyebrow archings at 75 cents each, and 3071 finger waves at 50 cents each, for example.

Other displays show daily life at the hospital for both patients and staff, and there is a small exhibit related to the filming of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Using the hospital and patients for the movie project was extremely controversial at the time, but the hospital’s director, Dr. Dean Brooks, fought for it claiming the filming would provide jobs for patients and make for an exciting adventure for everyone at the hospital.  It might be noted that Dr. Brooks plays himself in the movie in the role of Dr. Spivey.

After leaving the museum, visitors should turn left and walk a short distance downhill to the Cremains Memorial. For years, the cremains of unclaimed, deceased patients were placed in copper canisters and stored in the basement of one of the buildings. Over time, water seeped in, corroding the canisters and turning the copper into marbled shades of blue and green. The labels on the 3500 canisters were mostly gone, and it took hospital employees two years to research the identities. Today the canisters reside in a special building allowing visitors to honor the dead.

The museum experience is a reminder of how our understanding and treatment of mental health has evolved over the years, and how much further we need to travel. To learn more about visiting, see www.oshmuseum.org.

Lasting Legacy of the CCC

 

At the Forest History Center on State Street in Salem there stands a life-size statue of a hunky, shirtless, young man leaning on a shovel. 

CCC Worker Statue

He is posed in front of a wooden, green building with a pair of gables and twin dormer windows. Their connection is a federal program initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after his inauguration to provide jobs for the nation’s growing number of unemployed young men.

Known as the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, it operated between 1933 and 1942, and was one of the most successful and popular New Deal programs.  Oregon was an active participant with over 60 camps scattered around the state. The men built roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds, fought forest fires, and planted trees. In exchange for their labor, they received education, job training, food and shelter (three hots and a cot) and the grand sum of $30 a month. They could keep $5 with the other $25 sent home to their families.  Even though eighty years have passed and many CCC efforts are long gone, about one-third of the permanent projects in Oregon remain and can still be enjoyed in forests and parks around the state.

Forest History Center, Salem

The Forest History Center is a good place to begin. The building was constructed by the CCC in 1936 to house their headquarters, and was moved to its present location from the east side of Mill Creek in 2001. Today, a section of the museum is dedicated to the CCC program and features camp photos, a wall map with site locations, and miscellaneous memorabilia donated by alumni. The CCC Worker Memorial Statue in front was dedicated in 2002.

Silver Falls Lodge

One of the program’s permanent projects is a short distance east of Salem at Silver Falls State Park. The CCC was responsible for constructing much of the infrastructure seen in the South Falls Day Use Area including rocks walls, bridges, stairs and the rustic South Falls Lodge. The lodge and surrounding ten acres are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, the CCC developed the park’s popular Trail of the Ten Falls.

West Shelter, Cape Perpetua

The Oregon Coast hosted several CCC camps, and remnants of Camp Cape Creek remain visible on the site of the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center, two miles south of Yachats.  Workers here built the campground and network of trails, but their most noted accomplishment was the West Shelter observation point at the top of the headland. Built of rocks, this sturdy structure has survived years of Pacific storms and even served as a coastal watch station during World War II.  Today’s visitors are more interested in spotting migrating whales than enemy boats or planes.

Mt. Hood National Forest, east of Portland, also saw many CCC projects. Camp Zigzag on Highway 26, was the longest running camp in the Northwest, and its workers built the Zigzag Ranger Station on the south side of the road. This compound consisting of various outbuildings is constructed in the Cascadian Rustic style using natural materials such as wood shingles, weatherboard, and native stone.  A similar, but more off-the-beaten-path ranger station can be visited on Forest Road 42, about 20 miles southeast of Government Camp. Here, at the Clackamas Lake Historic Ranger Station, are eleven buildings including a small visitor center. The ranger’s residence was built by the CCC in 1933 and is available for rental during the summer months.

Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge, probably the best known Depression-era project in Oregon, was constructed by the WPA, but the CCC worked on the lodge’s terracing, stonework, and landscaping. They built the Timberline Trail encircling Mt. Hood and worked on a variety of other projects in the area including Cloud Cap Inn and several campgrounds.

Malheur Nat'l Wildlife Visitor Center

In other parts of the state you’ll find evidence of the CCC at Crater Lake’s Rim Road and Rim Village, the rock work at Oregon Cave’s Chateau, the Visitor Center and Museum at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, Jessie Honeymoon State Park near Florence, and the Dee Wright Observatory at the summit of McKenzie Pass.

The CCC program lasted only nine years.  By 1942, the country was gearing up for WWII and young men were leaving to join the army.  However, their hard work through those difficult Depression years left a significant contribution and lasting legacy to Oregon’s public lands.