Weston Hospital

Weston State Asylum

Mendeux, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Quick Facts

Location:

River Street, Weston, West Virginia

Significance:

Architecture, Health/Medicine

Designation:

78002805

The Weston Hospital is one of a small number of nineteenth-century institutions that survive in America to illustrate the great reforms in the treatment of mental patients. The importance of this movement attracted some of the greatest architects of the 19th century in America. The Asylum's plan conformed to the Kirkbride system, named for Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, the Philadelphia physician who first recognized insanity as an illness. Patients could be placed in the great wings of the pavilions with maximum privacy, classified by wards, and provided with quarters that were flooded with light and air. This West Virginia facility, once quite isolated, was also self sufficient and was a model architectural community that operated successfully for over 100 years.

Weston Hospital qualifies under Criteria A and C for its contributions to American architectural history and its medical and health-related significance. Its period of significance ranges from 1858 to 1881.

“Weston State Asylum,” Image by Mendeux, CC BY-SA 3.0,

A project through the Save America's Treasures Grant Program, which helps preserve nationally significant historic properties and collections, funded renovation work at the Weston Hospital in 2000.