State+Hospital

In spite of its isolated position in the southwest corner of the state, the Wyoming State Hospital has responded to the demands of a concerned public for mental health and psychiatric care by rehabilitating patients in the most efficient manner possible. When first built, the hospital served a population of 60,000, distributed primarily along the major highway, the Old Overland Trail, and the railroad which connected Cheyenne and Evanston.

The hospital now serves a more widely distributed population. When possible, the staff works with families and community agencies and resources to involove them in treatment planning, and in care and rehabilitation of the patients.

The first legislation relevant to the care of the mentally ill occurred December 7, 1869, when the Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Wyoming approved an act to "provide for...idiots, lunatics and insane persons" by transporting them to "any eastern asylum". The hospital at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, was the cooperating agency most used by Wyoming at that time.

Seventeen years later, the Wyoming Territorial Legislature authorized a bond issue, of which #30,000 was appropriated for a state mental hospital with the provision that "there be a special insane asylum" tax to cover the interest and redemption of the bonds. There was also a stipulation that "not less than 100 acres cultivable land to be donated for the building site so as to reduce expenses and to provide employment for inmates able to work."

Construction of the Insane Asylum for the territory of Wyoming was started and completed in 1887. Control was vested in a board of commissioners which was composed of three Evanston business men. When Wyoming became a state, in 1890, the Constitution established the State Board of Charities and Reform as the governing body, and it has remained such to the present time.

The Fourth Wyoming Legislature convened in January, 1897, and in March of that year changed the name to the Wyoming State Hospital for the Insane. Twenty-six years later, in 1923, when the Seventeenth Legislature convened, the name was again changed by the declaration that, "the official name of the Insane Asylum shall be The Wyoming State Hospital."

There is no resemblance in the complex which today comprises the hospital to the original institution which included only the two-story brick hospital building and adjacent superintendant's residence with the engine house, laundry, and barns built in the rear. The original hospital housed male patients and their attendants on the first floor, women patients and their attendants on the second, and kitchens, pantries, and store rooms in the basement. An addition to the hospital building construction in 1906, was destroyed by fire in 1918. The building was replaced by the present Administration Building in the same year.

New structures were erected and existing ones renovated during the administration of each superintendent, and new construction is projected for some years in the future, The present campus encompasses over twenty-five buildings. In addition to the halls for patients, which are names for Wyoming counties, and resident facilities for staff, there are a number of buildings and areas, These include the chapel, snack bar, canteen, country store, dining room, and kitchen, which are accessible to all patients and staff, and the hospital service buildings - that is the laundry, maintenance shops, and storage areas.

The hospital's first patients were transferred in two pullman cars from the hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, to Evanston in 1888. They were accompanied by Dr. Hocker and members of his staff. No patient records were maintained prior to the administration of Dr. Charles H. Solier', who was the appointed superintendent in 1891. One of Dr. Solier's early records states that there were twenty-three patients in the hospital and that during the year, 1891, forty-one patients had been in treatment.

The hospital growth rate has been extensive. Three hundred and twenty-four patients were treated in the period form 1914 to 1916. There were 175 admissions and an average daily census of 438 during the two-year period ending in 1930. The patient turnover has been much greater with the advent of the rehabilitation program. In the ten-year period from July 1, 1963, to June 30, 1973, there was an average daily inpatient populaion of 511. There was an average daily inpatient population of 684 in the 1963-64 year; and a daily average of 336 in 1972-73.

Treatment was primarily custodial care in the early years of the hospital. At no time, however, was the hospital static. Treatment methods were utilized as they became available. Prior to the adoption of the unit system, in 1969, hospital services were departmentalized. The unit system provides service in the most economical manner with sound psychiatric and medical practices, and for the return of rehabilitated, treated patients to society at the earliest practical date. The decline in patient population in the face of increased numbers of admission attests to the hospital's more efficient treatment programs.

The unit treatment system has sustained a consistently serviceable milieu for psychiatric and medical patients. Comprised of seven autonomous treatment units, the system combines the flexibility offered by the variety with the structured impact of specialized programs. The overall goal of the Unit Treatment System is to provide for patients' needs by grouping those with similar problems into halls where common treatment and rehabilitation methods are shared. There are seven treatment units. The units are: (1) Admissions and Intensive Treatment, (2) Alcoholic Treatment, (3) Social Rehabilitation Treatment; (4) Corrective Psychiatry Treatment; (5) Medical-Geriatric Treatment; (6) Social Remotivation Treatment; and (7) Adolescent Treatment.