This is yet again another document found at the Austin History Center, with no author to thank for this contribution. When reading this it is important to remember that the way people spoke whenever this was written, which I assume was sometime in the 1970s. Is different than today. Indian Indians today are known as Indigenous Americans. When referring to the quest to find someone to manage the building. Men and women today would have been considered. All of the buildings except for the administration building, the original building have been demolished. One wonders if Central Market, which is now located right next to where the central kitchen used to be, if that is where it got its name.
It’s titled: Way back when – Nostalgia. Austin State Hospital.
Way back when the hospital was first built, some Indian tribe unknown, lived across the street in what is now Hyde Park. The only building was the administration building. Construction started in 1857 and was completed in 1861. Shortly after the hospital was opened, the Indians, feeling the old neighborhood was getting a little crowded, took off and moved to Mount Bonnell. The Indians reputation out there must have lingered because it is understood that things still get a little wild out there on occasion. According to Hearsay, the governor got a raise when the hospital was first opened. It went like this. The requirement for Superintendent was to be a medical doctor, be married, and live on the grounds. To find a man with those qualifications would have meant paying the Superintendent more than the governor. The governor considered this a slam against the great sovereign state of Texas and threatened to veto the bill unless he was given a higher salary.
There was only room for about 50 patients, and both patients and employees lived on the hospital grounds. Life was pretty simple in those days and moved at a slow, leisurely pace. Until only a few years ago, the south end of the grounds had a small, pretty lake with herds of deer and other small critters, which gave the place a nice homey, woodsy sort of feeling.
It seems the Infirmary just to the east of the administration building was the next building.
That building, now demolished, was more recently known as CBV, Independent Living Unit and before that was male supervisor’s office. According to old-timers, the surgery in the building was located on the second floor and as the stairs went down at a 33-degree angle, I always felt they had a real problem getting their surgical patients up and down the stairs.
The next building was behind the administration building to the north. This was a kind of plaster building, which was reminiscent of the type of structure you see at Camp Mabry, which was the original Texas Rangers headquarters. Since this building was located on the Flowing Springs, it served as a laundry and at one time even had indoor swimming pool. In more recent years, before it was demolished, it served as a Men’s centralized OT Shop, The Shoe Cobblers,Shop, and the Second Floor was used for music therapy.
Neither patients nor staff suffered from lack of social and cultural outlets.
Next to the water fountain and fish pond across from the administration building, was a white wooden gazebo. On Sunday afternoons, patients, staff and their families would gather around the grass under the trees, while the hospital band, composed of both patients and employees, entertained with the popular tunes of that era.
Families were a way of life at the hospital and it was usually expected that on becoming of age, younger members would obtain employment at the hospital. This was only natural as many of them had been born on the hospital grounds. Prior to 1955, when the present medical and surgical building was constructed., Dorothy Dix was the “White Hospital” and what is now the canteen was the “Colored Hospital”.
Salaries weren’t too high either. In those days, and as fringe benefits, families were given quarters of some type on the grounds, plus their meals, and were also given free medical care for themselves and their dependents.
Length of employment and status determined the level of your assigned living quarters. Single males were given rooms in the basement of the administration building, while Single Ladies had quarters on the 3rd floor of what is now the day school building. There were also some quarters over the laundry, and remember that was in the days before air conditioning. In fact, where there was a room longer than A, broom, closet, you would probably find an employee living there. Also, there was cottages scattered over various parts of the grounds. Most employees ate at what used to be central kitchen, located on the side of the present All Faiths Chapel. That huge monstrous red brick building housed a dining room for the “wing” patients, an employee’s dining room and the 3rd floor contained the recreation hall. There were big enclosed concrete and metal catwalks leading from the administration building and the wing wards West of the administration building to the central kitchen and dining room. Fate in her kindness, ordained this huge structure to be consumed by fire in December of 1958 without any loss or injury to patients and staff. Because of that fire, a new recreation hall and central kitchen was built. In those days, about the only way to get a new building was to have an old one burned down.
A lot of people have mixed feelings about the old administration building. Some say tear it down and others say keep it for a museum.
In any event, it does have a historical marker on the front porch, so it is safe for a while. When you consider it was built about 21 years after the Alamo fell, it does seem it has earned its place in the history of Austin and Texas. The three long halls on the east side of the administration building were the original first three wards. They were known in later years as 1 OB 2 OB and 3 OB. The OB meaning old building. The Superintendent’s apartment was on the second floor in what is the medical library. The kitchen was located in the basement directly under the business manager’s office, and the three rooms directly above were the dining rooms, with a dumb waiter bringing the food up from the basement. There really is a bell that hung in the belfry on top of the administration building and that is the same bell that is being used in the bell tower for the All Faiths Chapel. That bell played a prominent part in the daily and the unusual routine for this neighborhood. It was not only rang out the hours for different changes of shifts, and when to go to work, but it was also used in times of unusual such as fires., or escapes, and sadly also times of death.
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