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Cook County Poor Farm, Illinois
American public Institution, 1851–1912 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Cook County Poor Farm (also known as the Dunning Poorhouse and Insane Asylum) was a public institution established by the Cook County Board of Commissioners of Illinois in 1851 to provide care for the destitute, infirm, and mentally ill of Cook County. The 320-acre property, located ten miles northwest of Chicago, was situated in what was once Jefferson Township, which became known as Dunning in 1883. It included the Poorhouse, the Insane Asylum, support buildings, a working farm and a cemetery. Later, two additional hospitals were built, along with a small schoolhouse for the inmates' children. The working farm produced most of the food required for inmates and staff. Flax was also grown to make linens, sheets and some clothing for the inmates. The County Commissioners administered all funds, appointed the staff, and supervised the operation of the Poor Farm.
With the growing number of inmates and its designation as Cook County’s only Potter's Field, the cemetery reached capacity by the 1860s, prompting the addition of new burial grounds. The Poor Farm's inmate population grew quickly, leading to overcrowding. The county built a new, larger Insane Asylum in 1870. The Poorhouse had fallen into disrepair by the 1870s and it could not accommodate the increasing number of inmates. In 1882, the county built a railroad line to the Poor Farm to facilitate the transportation of people and supplies during the construction of a new Poorhouse. Construction on a new Poor house began in the early 1880s and was finished in 1885. The county renamed the facility the "Infirmary." Consumptives had been part of the Poor Farm inmate population since the beginning, and were housed in a small building. Increased demand to care for consumptives at Dunning led to the building of a new Tuberculosis hospital, completed in 1903. After 1900, due to the escalating costs and challenges of caring for the large population at Dunning, the State of Illinois took over responsibility for the Infirmary, the Insane Asylum and the Tuberculosis Hospital. The Poor Farm at Dunning was sold to the state in 1912. The Insane Asylum patients remained on site and the inmates of the Infirmary and the Tuberculosis hospital were transferred to a newly constructed Infirmary in Oak Forest, Illinois.
Complaints about the conditions at the Poor Farm and the treatment of the inmates were an ongoing challenge for the County Commissioners. Charges by inmates and observers concerning abuse, neglect and substandard living conditions were typically investigated by several County Commissioners or a committee appointed by the County. Crimes were investigated by both the County and the police. The local newspapers often did their own investigations and wrote exposes on the conditions at the Insane Asylum and the Poorhouse. From the firing of an incompetent, non-licensed physician in the 1850s to the beating death of inmates by attendants in the 1890s, the Poor Farm was often in the headlines of the Chicago newspapers.
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Description
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The 320-acre Poor Farm was located northwest of the intersection of Irving Park and Narragansett Avenues in Chicago, Illinois. It was originally bordered by Irving Park Road, Narragansett Avenue, Montrose Avenue, and Oak Park Avenue. A three-story brick building, costing $25,00 was the first structure built on the property, and was finished in 1854.[1] Other early structures included a second brick building and seven wood frame buildings. New building complexes added from the 1860s to the early 1900s were: the Cook County hospital (1863-1866), a new Insane Asylum (1870), the Infirmary (1885), and the Tuberculosis (Consumptive) Hospital (1903).[2] The number of Poor Farm inmates ranged from the first 75 in 1854 to 1731 inmates at the Poorhouse and 2252 patients at the Insane Asylum in 1910.[3]: 264 Other buildings on the property in 1905 included: administration buildings, separate cottage wards, ice house, drug store, gas house, storehouses, hay barn, hog pens, slaughterhouse, steam laundry, engine house, firehouse, nurses' cottage, and crematory.[4][5][6]
The "Poor Farm", "County Farm" or "Dunning", were the names most often used to describe the 320 acre, multi-building complex during its 60 year existence. It was also known variously as the: "Cook County Insane Asylum and Infirmary", "Cook County Poorhouse", "Cook County Almshouse", "Cook County Infirmary", "Cook County Old-Age Home", "County House", and "Poorhouse and County Farm".[1][7]
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History
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The first almshouse in Cook County, Illinois was built in 1835 and was located in Chicago at the intersection of Clark and Randolph streets. Funded and supervised by the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the almshouse provided refuge for the destitute, the insane, single mothers and their children, the elderly, infirm, and physically and mentally disabled residents of Cook County. In 1841, the county decided to establish a county poor farm outside the city limits of Chicago, south of the city in Lake Township. Acccording to Chicago historian, Richard C. Lindberg, “The feeling was it’s better to isolate the population of the mentally handicapped, the indigent, and keep them far away from the city proper,”[7] This county farm was in operation until 1854, when the inmates were transferred to the larger, new County Poor Farm in Jefferson Township.[8]
Early years (1851–1862)
In 1851, the Cook County Board of Commissioners purchased 160 acres in the township of Jefferson, as the site for a new poorhouse and insane asylum. Initially, both facilities together were known as the Cook County Poor Farm, and were housed in a new three-story brick building costing $25,000.[1] In 1854, the first 76 residents were transferred from the existing Lake Township almshouse to the new facility. “They didn’t provide very many services,” says Joseph J. Mehr, a clinical psychologist who wrote about Dunning in his 2002 book, An Illustrated History of Illinois Public Mental Health Services “What they really provided were a place to sleep and food,” he says. “And that was pretty much the extent of it.”[7]
The new Poorhouse initially housed both the indigent and the insane. Adjacent to the main three-story building was a smaller, two-story wing with narrow, barred windows designed to house the insane inmates.[3]: 259 They were held in cells that measured seven feet wide and eight feet long. The cell doors were fitted with small, narrow openings through which food was passed to inmates.[9] The Cook County Commissioners administered all funds to the Poor Farm, selected the Poorhouse and Insane Asylum staff and appointed the County Agent. The County Agent was responsible for admitting inmates to the Poorhouse and also distributing "outdoor relief", temporary funds granted to impoverished, injured or ill residents in the county who continued to live in their own homes.[10]: 16 In 1855, the County Commissioners decided to expand the Poor Farm complex to include Tuberculosis patients. A school was added in the 1860's to provide for children living at the Poor Farm[1][3]: 175
Expansion (1863–1900)
New hospitals
In August, 1863, the county established a general hospital on site and transferred patients from Mercy Hospital in downtown Chicago to a hospital building at the Poor Farm. The hospital staff were responsible for the care of injured and ill patients at the farm, as well as injured and ill patients brought in from the surrounding area. In January, 1866, the hospital closed, and the patients were moved to a public hospital in Chicago.[3]: 175 By 1868, the original brick structure housing both the Poorhouse and Insane Asylum inmates was falling into disrepair and had become a potential fire hazard. The County Commissioners decided to build a separate new Insane Asylum. The new building site was 200 feet south of the Poorhouse. Construction began in the summer of 1869 and the three-story building was completed in 1870 at a cost of $135,000.[2]
The new brick building was a remarkable contrast to the existing Poor House. The new Insane Asylum consisted initially of three floors with four wards on each per floor. In 1873, a fourth story with four wards was added to the building. A center section of the building was divided into rooms and offices. Wings extended from the center with inmate wards on each side of a wide corridor, extending the length of each wing. There were bath rooms and toilets on each floor with hot and cold running water. At the back of the main building was a brick building, two stories in height. It was divided into different rooms and functions: a bakery, kitchen, and laundry rooms. There were apartments on the 2nd floor for the physicians and staff. The food for the inmates was cooked in the rear kitchen building and brought to the wards by rolling carts to the six dining rooms. In 1871, the building's capacity was increased by adding more living spaces to the basement. By 1878, the new building was beyond its 350-inmate capacity. Of the asylum's total population of 437 inmates at the time, 100 people were forced to sleep on the floor.[3] [11]
New Infirmary
In 1878, County Commissioners visiting the Poor Farm and noted its advanced state of disrepair. They described it as "An old rookery which should be torn down." Living and sleeping areas were dirty and infested with vermin. They recommended that the buildings be replaced with a large new building complex.[12] In 1878, The Biennual Report of the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities of the State of Illinois disclosed the current state of the Poor Farm buildings. The Poor House and Insane Asylum together contained 1300 inmates; 800 were Poorhouse inmates with 150 children, and 350 were insane inmates. Building #1 was the original 3-story Poorhouse, with attic and basement, and at the time of the report, contained 24 rooms sheltering 100 old and sick women. The basement contained a large dining room, kitchen and laundry work areas. Building #2, the adjacent, smaller, original Insane Asylum was no longer being used for the insane. Surrounding the Poorhouse were other wood frame cottages containing large, open rooms where the inmates lived and slept. The barracks-style arrangement contained rows of iron bedsteads with army blankets, and no privacy for inmates. With no hot water in these buildings, the inmates were rarely bathed. These buildings were seen by the Commissioners as barely habitable and near collapse.[11]
By 1882, the Poorhouse had become increasingly overcrowded and the original three-story building was beyond repair. The county decided to build a new Poorhouse and name it the Infirmary. The plan was to build a large brick building on the southern edge of the property, next to Irving Park Road. The new structure was designed for a capacity for 1000 inmates. The layout of the new building consisted of a central building with several residential wings radiating from the center.[2] Before 1882, the Infirmary and the Insane Asylum were managed by the five Cook County Commissioners. The Commissioners appointed a medical superintendent for the asylum and a warden, engineer and storekeeper for the Infirmary. In 1882 the county board handed over the management of the Infirmary to the warden and management of the Asylum to the superintendent. In 1885, separate cottage-style ward buildings of the Insane Asylum were completed at a cost of $135,000. Dunning was among the first asylums in the U.S. to appoint female physicians. The first women physicians were Dr. Delia Howe, appointed May 1, 1884, and Dr. Harriet Alexander, appointed February 1, 1885. In 1890, four new buildings––cottage wards 1, 2, 3, and 4, were added to the Poor Farm along with a biological laboratory and autopsy house.[9] : 243 A new schoolhouse was built on the grounds and a teacher was hired to teach two half day classes to the inmates' children.[4]
Dunning train depot
The nearest railroad station to the Poor Farm was located in the town of Jefferson, two miles to the east. Unable to easily transport patients, visitors, and construction supplies to the expanding Poor Farm complex, the County Commissioners built a three-mile-long branch line and arranged for a daily train run by the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. The new track ran between Mount Olive Cemetery and Zion Gardens Cemetery, directly to the Poor Farm.[13] Initially, the Poor Farm was called "Jefferson" because of the nearby town. A new train depot was built northeast of the Infirmary, at the southeast corner of Irving Park Road and Nashville Avenue. It was named "Dunning" after the Dunning family who conveyed a portion of their land to Cook County to allow for the construction of the new track and the train station. Afterward, the Poor Farm was called "Dunning" until it closed in 1912.[7]
Tuberculosis hospital
The majority of consumptive (tubercular) patients in Cook County were cared for in Chicago at the Cook County Hospital until 1899. Inmates at the Poorhouse who were consumptive were housed in a small building, #9, at Dunning.. In 1899, the county decided to build its third major institution at Dunning, a Tuberculosis Hospital.[3]: 261 The hospital was built in the southeast corner of the property, near the intersection of Narragansett and Irving Park Road. The new Tuberculosis hospital, called the Tuberculosis Pavillion, was opened in late 1903. It was a five-building complex of wood frame buildings. The center building was a two-story administration building and central dining room. Each of the five residential wards measured 52 x 65 ft. A two-story building was added in 1907 for the more advanced Tuberculosis patients.[2]
Burial grounds
Deaths occurred regularly at the Poor Farm. In the 1850s inmates were buried in the on-site cemetery. In the early 1860s, the original cemetery had reached its capacity and workers started burying the dead behind the main buildings. By the late 1860s, with the growing inmate population, there was a need for additional burial ground. In 1869, the county decided to move a 20-acre section of the burial ground that was situated too close to the insane asylum 300 yards to the west. After 1870, when the City Cemetery at North Avenue and Clark Street in Chicago closed, the Poor Farm was designated as the official burial grounds for burying the poor or unclaimed dead of the county.[14] Additional space in the cemetery needed to found and new areas at the Poor Farm were used for burials.[2] By 1890, the Poor Farm burial grounds were being used for approximately 1000 county burials each year. At that time, the burial grounds east of the railroad line on Normandy avenue was full and a new burial ground was opened west of Oak Park Avenue.[15]
Farm colony
When the Poor Farm first opened in 1854, the first farm building listed was a barn with an fenced barnyard and eight cows.[2] This was the start to what later would become a large dairy at the farm, providing milk, cheese and butter daily to over 1300 people.[4] In 1861, the warden at the time, S.B. Chase, reported to the County Board of Commissioners that the stock and produce of the farm that year was: 16 cows, 30 hogs, 30 bushels of millet, 378 bushels of oats, 10 tons of hay, 600 bushels of corn, 100 bushels of onions, beans, potatoes and all the milk, cheese and butter required for the inmates' meals.[16]
Over time, the farm produced all the fruit, vegetables, milk, cheese and butter needed for the inmates' dining room. Hogs were raised and butchered for meat. Oats, corn, barley and hay for the animals was raised on the farm. The female inmates made soap and most of the clothes worn by inmates. The able-bodied inmates worked on the farm and women worked indoors in the kitchen, sewing, knitting and doing laundry.[17] The linens, quilts, shirts and sheets were spun from flax grown on the farm.[18] In 1914, when the Poor Farm had been sold to the state, the working farm continued to feed the patients at the Chicago State Hospital. Fifteen out of 110 acres was under cultivation with garden crops of vegetables, strawberries, and a vineyard. The farm inventory included 260 hogs to be butchered for food, 1000 chickens, 100 ducks, 7600 gallons of homemade sauerkraut, and 3000 gallons of homemade pickles.[19]
Selected investigations
On April 4, 1860, several complaints were made to the County Board of Commissioners on the incompetence and neglect of the Poorhouse physician. Investigation by the committee on the Poorhouse was recommended.[20] In 1862, a report was made to the Board of Commissioners of raising concerns about the conditions at the Insane Asylum. "We would further report that we find the insane department quite inadequate to meet the wants of its inmates, its present condition being nothing more than a place of confinement."[17] The complaints about the asylum and resulting investigation led to the county to decide to build a new separate Insane Asylum.[2]
The Grand Jury of Cook County visited the Poor Farm in March, 1874 to investigate the conditions of the inmates. They visited both the female and male wards at the Poorhouse and found the conditions to be good, the rooms clean and warm and clothing deemed adequate for the inmates. They next visited the new Insane Asylum and were impressed with the quality and spaciousness of the rooms. There was abundant hot and cold water available in bathrooms on each floor. They finally visited the kitchen to review how the inmates were fed. Here, the Grand Jury found much to criticize. The meat was unpalatable. Turnips were the only vegetable available to eat. "The tea looked as if were made from sweepings from the floor", according to the foreman, Alex Young.[21]
"In 1885, there were many complaints made against the appointments through the political friendship of the appointing power, which resulted in the presence of many inexperienced and incapable attendants."[4] In 1885, Mrs. Alexander who worked at the Insane Asylum made a public complaint about the conditions of the asylum. She reported that three hundred patients living in a space with the capacity of 150. Mrs. Alexander claimed that the clothing was inadequate and the food was terrible and not fit to be eaten. She also claimed that the wards were dirty and the attendants were cruel and often drunk."[22]
In 1889, two ex-patients testified in court about the abuse they received and observed while at Dunning. One former inmate said that his teeth were knocked out and his arm was broken by two attendants. He also testified that he saw two attendants beat several other patients and beat an inmate named Levi to death.[23] In 1895, there was a criminal investigation into the murder of inmate George Pucik, who was kicked to death by two attendants of the insane asylum. In January, 1896, the jury was not able to determine the source of the victim's injuries with the evidence presented. The two attendants were determined to be not guilty.[24] The General Assembly appointed Mrs. Kate Bradley at the time of the murder to investigate and report on the conditions of the Dunning Poor Farm. She found the wards to be clean and orderly, and visited the main buildings and the new residential cottages. She reported that the insane population at Dunning was growing dramatically and that there were not enough attendants to care for the patients properly. Because of overcrowded wards, two attendants look after 30 to 40 patients. She also found the food to be good and plentiful, but the water supply inadequate.[25]
Escalating costs and closure (1900–1912)
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After 1900, the County Board of Commissioners continued to be challenged by the escalating cost of maintaining the buildings and caring for the Poor Farm inmates. They determined that many of the structures were too small for the growing numbers of inmates and many buildings were in disrepair.[3] The County Commissioners made an appeal to the State of Illinois to assume responsibility for the mentally ill and mentally disabled residents of Cook County. In 1909, the Illinois general assembly decided that care for the insane in Illinois needed to be a state responsibility and enacted new legislation entitled "An Act to Revise the Laws Relating to Charities." Section 20 of this new law authorized the removal of the insane and mentally disabled from the county poorhouses in counties with populations of less than 150,000 and transfer those patients to Illinois state hospitals.[9]
Cook County agreed to sell the Poor Farm property and buildings to the state for one dollar. The Board of Commissioners purchased 254 acres in the Bremen Township as the site for a new Infirmary for the poor and Tuberculosis Hospital. A new infirmary was constructed that could house 2300 inmates and was named "Oak Forest Hospital". On November 26, 1910, an initial 250 Infirmary inmates were transferred to the new Oak Forest Infirmary. It admitted its remaining inmates in December in 1910, with 1731 inmates who were transferred from the old Infirmary in Dunning. A Tuberculosis Hospital at Oak Forest was completed in 1912. The remaining patients at the Insane Asylum at Dunning were housed in abandoned Tuberculosis and Infirmary buildings.[3]: 269
From December 1910 to June 29, 1912, the county continued to supervise operations at the Poor Farm, but many of the poor, infirm and Tuberculosis patients had moved to Oak Forest. The remaining inmates at Dunning were primarily the insane patients in the asylum.[3]: 270 On June 29, 1912 the Cook County sold the entire Dunning holdings, then valued at $1,519,128 to the State of Illinois for one dollar. The state assumed charge of the Cook County Insane Asylum on July 1, 1912, and the name was changed to the Chicago State Hospital. The local community continued to refer to the insane asylum as Dunning.[8]: 248 The Tuberculosis Pavillion at the Poor Farm became State property on July 1, 1912 but was leased back to County who ran this hospital until late March 1915.[3]: 271 The Chicago State Hospital closed in 1970. The State of Illinois sold most of the remaining county property. The buildings of the original Poor Farm no longer exist. The 320-acre Poor Farm site in Dunning now contains neighborhood homes, the Wright College Campus, and the Dunning Square shopping center.[7]
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