history
"Williams State Hospital" first opened its doors in 1869 to patients transferred from almsouses and other state hospitals. The complex supported itself through unpaid patient labor on its farms and in its kitchens and industrial shops. The hospital was nearly self sustaining, growing and cooking its own food, creating its own clothing and shoes for patients, and even building its own caskets. Patients stayed in rather plain brick buildings while staff and doctors were treated to slightly nicer accomodations.
The population of the asylum grew steadily much like other complexes at the time, and soon the hospital suffered from over-crowding and horrible living conditions. At its height, the asylum housed some 4,076 patients in 1955. New drugs were introduced at this time for the treatment of patients, and slowly the population began to decline. This was due to the new drugs and new laws passed for patient rights, which required that patients be paid for their labor. Suddenly institutions such as this one were unable to sustain themselves without the free labor and by the early 1970s shrinking the population became the priority, reaching all the wa down to less than a thousand in 1974, and eventually only a few hundred in 1995, when the facility closed its doors forever.
More than 50,000 patients passed through the doors of "Williams State Hospital" throughout its life, and more than half of these patients died there.
Some information from suitcaseexhibit.org.