April 9th, 2008
The Lost Kirkbrides: Napa State Hospital
This one’s been a bit of a question mark, but the evidence I’ve seen points to there originally being a Kirkbride at Napa State Hospital in California. Unfortunately, if Napa did have a Kirkbride it’s long gone. According to this write-up on the institution’s 130th anniversary the building was town down in 1949.
Here’s another image that better shows the “Kirkbride-ness” of this lost building.
It looks like it was a big one too, although maybe not as large as Greystone or Buffalo. I can’t imagine anyone not seeing the aesthetic and historical value of this structure, but stranger things have happened. Maybe it was considered too over the top for a public hospital. Or maybe California is too progressive for old-fashioned buildings:)
I’ve added a Napa State Hospital page which includes some history and a third image of the Kirkbride not shown here.
well here is the first comment. all I have to say is if there is really a hell on earth then NSH is it. I was stuck there for an entire year and it really was hell!
People in there are not crazy, its a big freaking joke for rich doctor scums to make money.
I’m sorry to hear that was your experience, William.
My husband committed a crime during a bi-polar episode and he may be going to NSH. I was hoping to hear more comments on what its like there.
They have about 60 great pictures of this building at the Napa Historical Society. Very few are from the inside. I would love to see more interior shots from back in the day. I’m from Napa but I’m too young to have seen the original “castle” structure.
NSH is hell on Earth and continues to be a torture chamber using unfortunate people that inadvertently fall into their web as their experimental mind-altering drug subjects. May the Lord God harshly rebuke NSH and its multi billion scams on the taxpayers. In fact, there is not even a scintilla of legitimate scientific basis supporting anything psychiatric. (See Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), International website.)
My friend just got sent there today.. hope she is not there for long after reading these comments..
Note that as with all state psychiatric hospitals in CA, patients at Napa state nowadays have been sent their by the civil courts — for being a danger to themselves or others — or by the criminal courts.
The old Napa or Imola Asylum was torn down because it was not earthquake proof. Some statues, perhaps angels, fell off the old structure during the 1906 quake. Also, with the advent of thorazine, many patients got better and the pace down-sized. I heard stories from my father who was an OT student many years ago. The old asylum had farms the patients worked at, but laws changed and patients were no longer allowed to work.