A photo of the NCDHHS Dorothea Dix Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. Pictured are the Hargrove Building (left) and McBryde Building (right) as viewed from Smithwick Drive.
The Dorothea Dix Hospital was the first North Carolina psychiatric hospital, located three miles southwest of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, and named after mental health advocate Dorothea Dix from New England. It was founded in 1856 and closed in 2012. Much of the site is now designated as Dorothea Dix Park and serves as Raleigh's largest city park. Part of the campus is a historical district called Dix Hill.
The hospital had several name changes over the years. From the initial planning stage, legislators gave it the name The Insane Asylum of North Carolina, and it returned to this name in 1869.[4]:8,21 According to the National Park Service, the hospital opened in 1956 under the name North Carolina Hospital for the Mentally Ill.[5] It was known for some period of time as the Lunatic Asylum for the State of North Carolina before returning to its original name.[4]:21[6] The hospital was then known briefly as the Central Hospital for the Insane before being renamed to The State Hospital at Raleigh.[4]:40 It was officially named Dorothea Dix Hospital in 1959.[7] Throughout its existence, the hospital has been informally known as Dix Hill.[4]:4
History
Spring Hill plantation
The land where the hospital was built was previously operated as the Spring Hill Plantation, built by Theophilus Hunter in the 1700s. This plantation covered over 5,000 acres of farmland and was worked by up to 90 enslaved Black people [8]
Opening
Dorothea Dix
In 1848, Dorothea Dix visited North Carolina and called for reform in the care of mentally ill patients. In 1849, when the North Carolina State Medical Society was formed, the construction of an institution in the capital, Raleigh, for the care of mentally ill patients was authorized. The hospital opened in 1856.[9][7]
Edmund Strudwick served as the hospital's first superintendent during early construction and Edward Fisher, living on-site with his family, oversaw completion and opening of the hospital.[4]:5,9 In the first year, the hospital reported admitting 51 male and 39 female patients.[4]:9 Challenges during the first years of operation included a fire that destroyed the gasworks and an outbreak of dysentery.[4]:13 Accomplishments included instituting an early form of occupational therapy and constructing a system to deliver water to the hospital from Rocky Branch.[4]:12,13
Civil War era
Dorothea Dix Hospital in 1872
The Civil War strained the hospital's finances due to inflation, scarcity of supplies, and reduced support from both the government and individual donations.[4]:14 When General Sherman's troops occupied Raleigh, Union soldiers camped on the hospital grounds, causing significant damage and depleting supplies.[4]:14 While the Union Army occupied Raleigh, Sherman and an aide, George Nichols, toured the hospital.[4]:16 During the Union occupation, the hospital also admitted Black patients for the first time.[4]:16 Political tensions of Reconstruction saw Fisher replaced by Eugene Grissom as superintendent.[4]:19–20
Closure
The former Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Public Consulting Group produced a report on North Carolina's state psychiatric hospitals and area mental health programs that was released by State Auditor Ralph Campbell Jr. on April 1, 2000[10]. This report recommended closing Dix Hospital as it was the most expensive mental health hospital in North Carolina at that time, as renovating its existing facilities was not feasible and building new facilities would be expensive, and recommended increasing the capacity at the other three mental health hospital in North Carolina in order to compensate (Cherry Hospital and Broughton Hospital, still open, and John Umstead Hospital, now closed). These recommendations were made despite the fact that the hospital was operating well and that its closure meant that mental health patients would have no local, public facility to use for care. The hospital land was purchased by the state to house the hospital.
The Dorothea Dix Hospital was at one time slated to be closed by the state by 2008, and the fate of the remaining 306 acres (124ha) was a matter of much discussion and debate in state and local circles. As of October 6, 2008, according to the News & Observer, state officials were calling the facility "Central Regional Hospital - Raleigh Campus".[11] But in 2009, the state announced that Dorothea Dix Hospital would not be closing and would not be a "satellite" of CRH.[12] It was announced in August 2010 that a lack of funding meant the facility would "shut its doors by the end of the year."[13][14]
In August 2012, Dorothea Dix Hospital moved its last patients to Central Regional Hospital in Butner, North Carolina, a facility that critics said did not provide enough beds for the most serious cases. To help alleviate the situation, in May 2012, UNC agreed to spend $40 million on mental health services.[15]
Hospital grounds
The hospital grounds at one time included 2,354 acres (953ha), which were used for the hospital's farms, orchards, livestock, maintenance buildings, employee housing, and park grounds.
In 1984, the Hunt administration transferred 385 acres to North Carolina State University's "Centennial Campus", and in 1985, the Martin administration transferred an additional 450 acres. Other pieces of the property now include the State Farmer's Market.
On May 5, 2015, the Council of State members voted unanimously to approve selling the 308 acres to the city.[16] Proceeds of the sale were to go to "fund facilities and services for the mentally ill."[16] Located on the property is Spring Hill, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.[17][18] The property is now operated as a city park and is open to the public.
A thorough history of the hospital was published in 2010 by the Office of Archives and History of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.[4]
The hospital is the setting for "Dix Hill", David Sedaris' reminiscence of working there as a volunteer in his youth, published in his collection Naked.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 O'Rorke, Marjorie. Haven on the Hill: A History of North Carolina's Dorothea Dix Hospital. Raleigh: Office of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 2010. 321 pp. ISBN978-0-86526-332-1.
↑ Marjorie L. O'Rorke (March 1983). "Spring Hill"(PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved May 1, 2015.
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