Northern State Hospital (Part 1)

This post is long overdue.  The pictures are from last September, but I had this post all ready to go not long after I took the pictures and somehow lost it: very frustrating.

On September 14th of last year, Northern State Hospital had an open house and tour of the grounds and I went hoping to see some of the areas that ordinarily are off limit.

Sadly, we were not allowed into any of the buildings except the chapel and were not even allowed to get close to many of the building because of the perceived danger.

Northern State Hospital Was building in the early 1900's as a state-or-the-art Psychiatric Hospital and was open from 1912 to 1976 when it officially closed.

The hospital is in the town of Sedro-Woolley, Washington, in Skagit County. There have been some efforts made to preserve it as a state historic site, thus far unsuccessful.

The hospital was meant to be self-supporting and included a farm, a dairy and a cannery which provided work, income and food for the hospital and its patients.

Today, the farm is part of a county park and the buildings are slowly falling down.  Some of the hospital and administration buildings are still in use by the Job Corps.

These pictures are all of the hospital and administration buildings, some still in use and other abandoned.  They were taken on a very gray day which made pictures difficult.

Rather unusual for this area, the hospital buildings were all in the Spanish Revival architectural style and the well-known architects were the Olmsted Brothers.

Pictures of the farm can be seen at this link: http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/01/northern-state-hospital-sedro-woolley.html.

The Chapel

 The Chapel Interior

 Nurses Quarters

The Hospital

 The Power Plant

Around the Grounds