History of Henryton State Hospital
Henryton State Hospital is a now-closed hospital complex in Marriottsville, in southern Carroll County, Maryland, just across the Howard County line. The complex is located within Patapsco Valley State Park and is very close to the Henryton Tunnel. The Henryton State Hospital center, or the Henryton Tuberculosis Sanatorium as it was called, was erected in 1922 by the Maryland Board of Mental Hygiene. It was established as a facility to treat African Americans suffering from tuberculosis. This was one of the first such facilities in Maryland erected to provide African Americans with the same level of treatment as whites.
The original complex opened in 1922 and consisted of 6 main buildings and one utility plant. These buildings were erected between the years of 1921 and 1923. The establishment of the Henryton Sanatorium was one of the final steps in Maryland’s program to treat all of the state's tubercular patients. In the late twenties and early thirties the tuberculosis rate among African Americans in Maryland was quadruple what the rate was among whites.This placed a heavy burden on the hospital to deal with the increasing number of patients. In 1938 the hospital was budgeted $270,000 for the construction of new buildings to house 200 more patients. The new buildings roughly doubled the size of the overall facility, and several more municipal buildings added even more space to the complex. However, by the time the new buildings were completed in 1946, the tuberculosis rates had dropped, leaving much more room than was necessary.
In the decades since the facility’s closure, the Henryton State Hospital complex has become a haven for vandals, drifters, and drug addicts. The façade of most of the buildings have been extensively damaged and are covered in graffiti. Most of the windows have been broken out, making the grounds around the hospital very dangerous. The doors to all of the buildings have been broken in, allowing access to the inside. Although the furnishings and equipment were removed before the facility closed, there is still remarkable damage from people going through. Henryton has been the site of many suspicious fires since its closure, the most well-known of them taking place in the early morning of December 19, 2007.
Since closing, several groups and individuals have shown interest in buying the property from its current owner, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The most determined among these is a non-profit organization which was founded specifically for the rehabilitation and preservation of the Henryton State Hospital. Save Henryton, founded by Baltimore resident, Ally Hunter-Harris, has been crusading since the spring of 2008 to save the abandoned property. They have, thus far, been unsuccessful in their pursuits.
Source: Wikipedia
External Link: Save Henryton
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