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Description

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St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center SLPRC formerly St Louis State Hospital is a JCAHO accredited 196bed psychiatric hospital which is operated by the Missouri Department of Mental Health In addition SLPRC is certified to provide Medicare Medicaid services by the Health Care Financing Administration

A part of the community for over 130 years the hospital has seen the surrounding neighborhoods change from fields and farms to a thriving residential and business area known as quotThe Hillquot famous for many fabulous restaurants markets and bakeries The hospital moved into all new facilities in 1997 including a 4ward hospital facility and 14 residential cottages

SLPRC provides high quality intermediate and longterm inpatient psychiatric and psychosocial rehabilitation services to adults with severe persistent mental illnesses including Axis I syndromes and Axis II personality disorders Also patients requiring forensic evaluation and treatmentrehabilitation are committed to the hospital from the Eastern Region of Missouri and are comprised of those from urban suburban and rural areas

Take a look around and learn more about St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center

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History

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On April 23 1869 St Louis County Lunatic Asylum opened its doors to 150 mentally ill people Work began in August 1864 Designed and built by architect William Rumbold it is the second governmental facility in the state to serve this population Rumbolds vision was to recall Imperial Rome resulting in the castirondome and plans that called for fine imported marble pillars for the front portico

Rumbolds castironstructured dome on the old St Louis County Lunatic Asylum now called St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center has dominated the landscape of south St Louis for over a century In the beginning it was generally held to be magnificent after which the fashion for ornamental extravagance faded and it came to be considered everything from monstrous to quaint Now however it has regained a place of architectural importance not so much by being beautiful as by being old It is also one of a unique matched pair in St Louis the other being Rumbolds dome over the old Court House at Fourth and Market Streets The dome is even a sort of skeleton cousin to what is probably the most widely recognized dome in the world the one surmounting the Capitol in Washington DC Rumbold may not have been the prime architect for the great dome in Washington but he was an honored consultant at least

Due to his failing health Rumbold had been buried fifteen months in Bellefontaine Cemetery before the St Louis County Insane Asylum formally accepted its first patients

The erecting of the St Louis County Lunatic Asylum brought about other historical features one being a 3843 foot artesian well Boring on this well began March 31 1866 and continued six days a week for three years five months and ten days until August 9 1869 The sulfur laden water well was considered the deepest well in the US as well as the deepest well in the State of Missouri until 1966 Famous though it came to be however the well was never more than a kind of afterthought It wasnt part of Rumbolds original plan and its success or as it turned out its failure has had no important effect upon the building of the hospital As a matter of fact the well did not produce drinkable water although it periodically produced brackish trickles to remind the drillers that the vicinity was famous for its mineral spas Finally the well was abandoned and sealed off and no one today is quite sure where the top of the shaft is hidden

Another historical element is an engine built before 1889 that remains operational in the power plant The power plant burns coal waste gas and oil and at peak capacity could light a town of 10000 people Its refrigeration unit produced 24 tons of ice daily for governmental facilities in the St Louis area Additionally a very high grade of coal was mined on the 53 acres until the mine was abandoned and filled with waste

Even in its earliest years the hospital never did operate with the 150 patients for which it had been designed Within two decades of opening it had 216 patients On October 6 1907 construction began on new wings and annexes known as buildings B C D E G H I J and separate K building to the original building to accommodate 2000 patients and employees The next overflow crisis occurred in the early 1920s which precipitated a separate building being erected for attendants quarters This freed space in the hospital into which patients could be moved By 1940 the hospital had 3844 patients

Dr Louis Kohler took over the hospital when was 120 percent overcrowded He established an outpatient clinic and a threeyear residency program for psychiatrists On October 22 1962 the Louis H Kohler Building was erected It included 4 floors with wings on each side In 1968 a contract was awarded to add two additional floors on the Kohler Building which would make the building six floors The Missouri Institute of Psychiatry now Missouri Institute of Mental Health MIMH was established in the Kohler Building MIMH now fully identified with the medical school of the University of Missouri has reasserted the dynamics and drive that were part of the birthright of St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center when it was the very new County Insane Asylum Patient population figures for the first time in a century have shown a downward trend and the facility thanks in part to U S government grants is increasingly exploring frontier problems of psychiatry To reflect downsizing in the early 1990s the East wing known as buildings G H I and J of the Dome Building were demolished

Along with structural changes the facility has also undergone various name changes When the City of St Louis separated from St Louis County the facilitys name changed from St Louis County Lunatic Asylum to St Louis City Insane Asylum Thirtyfive years later it was renamed City Sanitarium In 1948 the City of St Louis sold the City Sanitarium to the State of Missouri for the sum of one dollar The General Assembly renamed the facility St Louis State Hospital In October 1997 St Louis State Hospital moved into its new quarters at 5300 Arsenal To reflect the new philosophy of treating psychiatric illness the facility was renamed to St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center This new psychiatric and rehabilitation facility is constructed to accommodate 212 clients housed in a series of 14 cottages and 4 wards The West wing annex buildings B C D and E of the original Dome Building and the Kohler Building were demolished This demolition accomplished two goals the first being the removal of the Kohler Building which blocked the view of the historical Dome Building And secondly leveling the remaining West wing returned the Domes structure to Rumbolds original design