This is about the privately-owned facility in Portland (1859-1883), not to be confused with Oregon State Hospital in Salem (established 1883).
Oregon Hospital for the Insane was a facility constructed in the city of Portland, Oregon, USA by medical doctors J. C. Hawthorne and A. M. Loryea. Launched in 1859 as Oregon Hospital, the facility later came to specialize in the treatment of mental illness and served as the de facto insane asylum for the state of Oregon under contract with the Oregon Legislature beginning in 1861.
Legislation passed in 1880 led to the launch of the state-owned Oregon State Insane Asylum (today's Oregon State Hospital) in Salem in 1883.
History
Background
The Oregon Territory became the state of Oregon on February 14, 1859, when President James Buchanan signed enabling legislation into law. At the time of admission into the union, the state of Oregon had a population of a mere 50,000 people — fewer than 3,000 of whom lived in Portland — and sparse medical resources to match.
Launch
Pioneer physician J. C. Hawthorne, and "surgeon" A. M. Loryea determined to pool their talent in 1859 with the August launch of "Oregon Hospital," a facility in which both would reside. The hospital was originally located on Portland's Taylor Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues. From the time of launch the hospital was dedicated to the treatment of non-contagious disease.
The hospital seems to have quickly gained support of the Oregon legislature as a semi-official facility for the maintenance and treatment of the mentally ill, with the press reporting in September 1861 that Hawthorne and Loryea were coordinating the contribution of "books for the use of the insane," with materials received to be held in trust as property belonging to the state of Oregon. From approximately that date Hawthorne and Loryea's Oregon Hospital became known as Oregon Hospital for the Insane.
The 1862 Oregon Legislature instructed Governor A. C. Gibbs to select a location in Salem for a permanent state hospital for the insane. This instruction was set aside, however, with contracting with the Oregon Hospital for the Insane in Portland seen as the more economical option for the state. A contractual relationship was established in which the state of Oregon paid a set per capita fee for the housing of "indigent insane and idiotic persons" committed to the facility by the courts.
Buoyed by state financial support, Oregon Hospital for the Insane was moved to a new permanent home in 1862, a building located on "Asylum Avenue" (today's Hawthorne Boulevard) on Portland's East Side, near SE 12th Avenue.
In 1872 co-founder of the hospital A.M. Loryea, nearly two decades Hawthorne's junior, sold his half of the enterprise to his partner and entered into the patent medicine business under the business name "Oregon Medical Laboratory", marketing a nostrum prepared from "Unk weed" said to ameliorate arthritis. Thereafter the facility was owned by Hawthorne alone and its fortunes were intractably bound up with his.
Description
A physician visiting the Oregon Hospital for the Insane in 1868 noted that the hospital was divided into wards, each with a toilet and bathroom supplied with hot and cold water. Patients ate in a common dining room, supplied by a single kitchen and the medical staff was supported by a well-stocked dispensary.
Each bedroom in the great building contained one or two beds, supplied with linen and blankets. Residents were served a variety of fresh and salted meats, fruit, vegetables, and bread, along with coffee and tea. Water was provided from a nearby spring, stored in a high water tower capable of supplying any part of the building.
In 1866 several acres surrounding the hospital had been enclosed with a high board fence, allowing increased opportunities for exercise and recreation for the facility's patients. Women were put to work sewing and knitting and were responsible for the greater part of the clothing used at the hospital. Those men able to work were assigned tasks on the hospital's own farm and gardens.
Corporal punishment was forbidden at the facility in favor of what were considered in the day to be "kind but firm treatment," including the use of strait jackets and confinement to quarters. J.C. Hawthorne was particularly singled out for his efficiency in the hospital's operation, including his "uniform kindness to the large number whose maladies will never admit of cure, but whose management has been entrusted to his care."