Driving along Route 6 in Wayne County, the view extends for miles. The Moosic Mountains dominate the landscape with their graceful peaks and quiet valleys. Small ponds and lakes add shades of blue to the landscape, and there are only a few small houses and farms in sight. It’s hard to imagine a more beautiful scene in Pennsylvania. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that these “restful and healthful qualities” have attracted tourists and admirers since the early 19th century.[1] The area’s beauty, isolation, and healing features, however, have also welcomed another group of Pennsylvanians: the mentally ill. Since 1912, thousands of patients lived on top of a Wayne County mountain plateau at Farview State Hospital, Pennsylvania’s first and only institution devoted to the care of the criminally insane.
From its modest beginning of a few wards and administrative buildings, the patients and staff at Farview worked hard over the decades to expand the hospital and its grounds and turn it into a self-sufficient community with all the facilities needed for the care of mentally insane patients. By the 1960s the institution had grown to become the home of over 1400 patients from all over Pennsylvania, complete with dozens of buildings and a 300 acre farm. For 84 years, Farview served as a home and community for patients who needed care and attention unavailable in prisons or other mental institutions. The hospital’s colorful history, full of challenges and dramatic transformations, sheds light on society’s changing views regarding proper care for the mentally ill, as well as the experiences of Pennsylvania’s mentally ill citizens. Continue reading “More than an Institution: Farview State Hospital”
