Northern State Hospital for the Criminally Insane
In the early 1900s, Washington’s two insane asylums were starting to get a bit overcrowded. In response, that state had the Northern State Mental Hospital built to ease the strain on the system. It quickly became the most crowded hospital in Washington state, with over 2000 patients by the 1950s. Although it was touted as one of the “good” mental institutions, where patients were treated with relative kindness, doctors at the asylum were known to perform horrifying experiments, including lobotomies and electroshock therapy. Many of the patients were heavily drugged during their stay at Northern State. The worst part of the asylum? Most of the patients weren’t actually mentally ill, but people who were just down on their luck. Patients admitted to the asylum were often suffering common maladies like depression, post-menopausal syndrome, or alcoholism.
