Candy Cane Jungle

This mental institution first opened its doors in November of 1908, and due to pressure to accept not only the mentally and physically handicapped, but also immigrants, criminals and orphans who could not be housed elsewhere, it was overcrowded within only a few years. In 1913, the Commission for the Care of the Feeble-Minded was appointed, and boldly stated that those with disabilities were unfit for citizenship” and furthermore, posed a menace to society. Patients at this institution were grouped into several general categories. Under the classification of mental capacity, one was listed as either an “imbecile” or “insane”. Physically, the patient could be declared either “epileptic” or “healthy”. During the early 1930's during the Depression parents and families who lived in the area of this state institution, who were destitute and had no means of providing their children, would anonymously abandon their children on the grounds of this institutions 634 acre campus. These children became wards of the state and most if not all their only affliction was being poor and uneducated, and this institution was not even funded enough to provide for the 2000 children who were sanctioned by the state to be cared for at this facility. These children suffered greatly as they did not receive any formal education, they required to mentally and emotionally thrive as children without diminished mental capabilities would under normal circumstances and conditions and most of these children ended up being classified as "mentally retarded" which during this time period was an acceptable form of classification terminology. By the mid-1960s, this Institution had been open for fifty years. It housed 2,791 people, most of them children, which was about 900 more than the administration thought the buildings could comfortably accommodate. But as a state school, they had to take what they were given. Only 200 of the residents were in any kind of art, education, or recreation programs that would help to improve their condition, though many of the patients were high-functioning enough to improve with the right care they were never given the opportunity or provided the care and the attention they needed in order to do so. The administrators noted that they were falling short of their ideal treatment, but with crumbling buildings, a budget shortfall of four million dollars, and only 9 medical doctors and 11 teachers (none of them with special education training), their hands were tied.Even after this institution was exposed by several under cover news reporters who gave documentary style news reports on the local news stations and showed the deplorable living conditions that the residents here were forced to live in and how they were treated by the staff it still took two decades of legal actions, class actions law suits filed on patients behalf, federal judgments made and overturned, and growing financial crises for the place to be Shut down finally By the 1980′s, the overcrowding, lack of funds, inadequate staffing and decades of abuse and neglect accusations caught up with the operation, and in 1987 this institution closed its doors. Its death was not without positive impact, though. The martyrdom of its long suffering of its patients mostly children helped put into motion changes to medical and mental health practices across the country and to society as a whole.
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