In , the hospital ended operating as a TB facility and reopened to care for severely mentally ill adults. The renovation and conversion of the facility was fully completed in the early s. It was converted to a state hospital and could accommodate patients. As deinstitutionalization took hold in the United States in the s, the resident population at Henryton dwindled. In , Henryton had fewer than resident patients and operations at the center were being phased out.
By the fall of , the facility was emptied, locked, boarded up, and closed. In , the facility had less than residents and was closed. The hospital was the most well-known abandoned location in Maryland. There have been 70 fires over the past decade, as the complex like others falls victim to vandalism and deterioration. The purpose of the institution changed from being the treatment of tuberculosis patients to educating and rehabilitating outpatients with disabilities aged 18 and over.
As part of its new remit, the hospital launched a rehabilitation program to assist patients with disabilities so that they could adapt to living in their communities and possibly going to work. The program was incredibly successful in reintegrating patients into society. In the early s, the preference began to be for outpatient care and home care. This naturally led to a reduction in the number of patients in the hospital.
In , a decision was made to halt the program due to the low numbers of patients enrolled. A year later, there were fewer than patients in the Henryton State Center; by the fall of , the facility was closed forever. A few years after its closure, the former hospital fell into an abandoned state and became an object of curiosity among urban researchers and vandals. Although visiting this property without written consent from the DHMH was prohibited, the doors to all the buildings were broken as people attempted to gain access anyway.
The threat of fines and criminal charges did not seem to act as much of a deterrent. Furthermore, most of the windows were knocked out, littering the site with broken glass, and the facade was covered with graffiti. Henryton suffered from a large number of fires that were considered to be started in suspicious circumstances. One newspaper reported that there were as many as 70 fires over the course of a decade.
The most notable one occurred in December , when the fire raged for over three hours, causing significant damage to the main building. After that, in April , there was another fire that damaged the roof of one building and required the help of firefighters from four counties to put it out. On Dec 19, 80 Firefighters from three counties responded to a large fire in the auditorium. Because of the unsafe nature of the building, firefighters could only control the fire from the exterior.
The auditorium and cafeteria have both since been demolished. Demolition of the entire facility began in June and is expected to be completed by August The former hospital site will be allowed to return to nature as part of the state park that surrounds it. Jump to: navigation , search. Navigation Main page Recent changes Random page Help.
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