Built 1822 Added to NRHP June 5, 1970 | NRHP Reference # 70000890 Designated NHL November 7, 1973 | |
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Location 2100 Bull St., Columbia, South Carolina Architect Robert Mills; Samuel Sloan | ||
The South Carolina State Hospital is a publicly-funded state-run psychiatric hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it was one of the first public mental hospitals established in the United States. The Mills Building, its first building, was designed by early American architect Robert Mills, and is a National Historic Landmark. The hospital had more than 1,000 patients in 1900, but with the transition of mental health facilities to community settings, it is now much smaller, occupying a small portion of its campus, with other parts housing offices and facilities of the state's Department of Mental Health.
History
The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum was authorized by state legislation in 1821, and was the second such state hospital (after Virginia's) to be authorized. Its original building, designed by Robert Mills and featuring the latest innovations in fire resistance and patient security, was built between 1822 and 1827. The hospital was at first only open to paying patients, with indigent patient costs billed to the government of the region from which they came. Admission was for the most part limited to whites, although some African-Americans (including slaves) were admitted before 1848, when their admission was formally authorized.
The hospital's facilities were enlarged, in part by expansion of the Mills building, and in part by the construction of new buildings on the campus. In 1892 the hospital opened a nursing school (which closed in 1950), and in 1896 it changed its name to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane. Its campus at capacity in 1910 (and like many such facilities nationwide, underfunded, understaffed, and its patients not well cared-for), a second campus was opened for African-Americans north of Columbia. Known first as the Palmetto State Hospital then later named Crafts-Farrow Hospital, its campus has been converted into a geriatric care facility.
Ongoing issues with staffing, funding, and patient conditions persisted in the 20th century, and the state began transitioning mental health care into community settings in 1920. Legal action surrounding patient care and funding in its hospital facilities in the 1980s resulted in a more focused effort to reduce the hospital population. In 1996 the two campuses were consolidated, with 410 beds. Buildings no longer used for patient care, such as the historic Mills Building, now house offices of the state Department of Mental Health and the Department of Health & Environmental Control.