Kirkbride Ghosts in LR
1883, Little Rock, Arkansas, a Kirkbride Building was opened. In that year, it was christened “The Arkansas Lunatic Asylum,” in 1905, it was known as the “Arkansas State Hospital for Nervous Diseases,” and finally, in 1933, the “Arkansas State Hospital.” It was demolished in the 1960s.
Why, one may ask, am I interested in the ghost of an old building whose entire existence has been wiped clean from the city of Little Rock (and the planet)? Well, one of my interests is in early architecture and its functions; some of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed were the old gothic Kirkbride buildings. I was very surprised that we had one here in Little Rock.
Thomas Kirkbride was an advocate of the moral treatment of patients in the mental health field. Early asylums were basically prisons where people were sent to be confined by their family or society. Often, the patients were subjected to a wide variety of abuses. When Kirkbride came up with the design and function of the “modern” asylum building, he envisioned the administration at the center of the complex, with two staggered wings on either side, one for men and the other for women. The more “excitable” patients were placed in the farthest wings on the ground floor; the more docile were placed closer to the administration center and on the upper floors. The grounds were normally cultivated by the patients, who took care of subsistence farming and general maintenance. This was not only to offset the cost of food and maintenance, it was also for therapy. Most of the grounds also had their own cemeteries as well. The image below is the layout of the facility and grounds on the 1933 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.
The grounds that surrounded the Kirkbride in Little Rock covered essentially the campus of UAMS off of I-630. It was bounded by Markham Street to the North, Elm Street (Jack Stephens Drive within the UAMS campus) to the east, and 8th Street (and I-630) to the south. The actual location of the administration building was at the intersection of 4th and Peyton Streets; essentially directly across the street from the fountain at the center of the existing campus.
As mentioned earlier, the main complex was demolished in the 1960s. I was able to georeference (geographically reference and overlay) the image to modern aerial photography and found the last remaining building of the complex to be demolished happened sometime in the 1990’s. It was a little structure that was known around campus as the “Chapel.” I used to have a picture of it, but unfortunately can’t find it. It was called the Chapel because it had a small porch with a stuccoed front overhang that someone had pressed little rocks in to spell out “Chapel.” I remember that it had no real windows, but allowed light into the structure via glass bricks that were incorporated into the walls; the porch was also ramped. Interestingly, the small structure (about 20x25) was used as many things in its useful years, including a small apartment. The structure can be seen on early Google Earth imagery before it was razed at 34°44'48.46"N, 92°19'30.24"W.
After locating the structure on the georeferenced Sanborn map, it turns out it was the morgue.
It is interesting to me that the last place many of the patients passed through was the last place to be lost to history at the site.
Researching the history of places can be really cool.
Anyway, more information for Kirkbrides around the nation can be found at the very excellent website: KirkbrideBuildings.com
Specific information for the Arkansas Kirkbride can be found at: Historic Arkansas - Kirkbride
