Times they are a changin’

by Tesha M. Wiedemann
STAR Assistant Editor
Things continue to change at the Cambridge State Hospital. What was once a bustling community housing 2,008 patients at its peak now serves 27 clients, less than what it began with in 1925.
The facility has constantly battled the public perception of the “feeble-minded” and lack of sufficient funding and staff while trying to treat patients in methods popular over the years.
Ever since the first five males were transferred from the School for the Feeble-minded at Faribault, advances in medicine and psychiatric treatment have changed the way epileptics and developmentally disabled people are viewed.
Since the establishment in 1940 of the Mental Health Unit within the Department of Public Institution in St. Paul, which was headed by Dr. D.E. McBroom (on a leave of absence from his position as Superintendent at the CSH), the state has been moving away from institutionalization towards integrating the developmentally disabled within society.
The long path towards this integration will culminate this summer, when most of the buildings on the ground will be demolished, ending an era marked by shame and segregation.
Although many former residents shudder when they recall their years spent at the Cambridge State Hospital, this was an institution that has held a unique place within the community that shouldn’t be forgotten once the bricks are torn down.
The facility, once larger than the city it was part of, was the largest employer in east central Minnesota, and people both scorned it, praised it and needed it.
While John Stocking was administrator (1965-74), an article in the Scotsman noted that the annual payroll of the Cambridge State School and Hospital was $2,700,000. At that time only 30% of the employees lived in Cambridge; the other 70% lived in Princeton, Mora, Pine City, North Branch, Rush City, Isanti and Braham. Of that payroll amount, 70% was spent in the northern part of Isanti County, the southern part of Mille Lacs County and the southern part of Kanabec County. In addition, another $80,000 was spent annually in area business places for goods and services required by the mammoth institution.
The article observed, “With these figures in mind, the Cambridge State School and Hospital must be the largest, next to agriculture, source of revenue in East Central Minnesota.
“We are indeed fortunate that this institution is located in our area, providing nearly 600 jobs for East Central Minnesota people…”
Community unto itself
It truly was a community unto itself. The first building finished in  1925 by Askov Construction Company was a self-contained unit with its own kitchen, laundry, pump and well, heating plant, refrigeration, recreation rooms, and dormitories for both staff and patients.
The second building constructed at the site, the Main Building (more recently known as the Administration Building), was built out of a similar mindset, that of keeping the facility self-sufficient. At a cost of $225,000, the building was finished in 1927 and contained administrative offices, quarters for the superintendent and other employees (who were required to live on site until 1940), a hospital adequate for the whole institution when finished, wards for epileptic children, school and industrial rooms, recreation rooms, kitchens, dining room, pantry, cold storage and power plant.
The first women’s dorm, Cottage 2, was opened in August 1927 with room for 72 females. Male and female patients were kept strictly segregated. Odd-numbered buildings, located to the south of the Administrative Building, housed males, and those to the north (with even numbers), housed females. Men and women did fraternize during dances and other entertainment held at the facility, however.
The decade that followed was one of rapid growth as Cottages 5 and 6 were finished in June 1932, Cottages 3 and 4 in 1935, and Cottages 7 and 12 in 1934, bringing the total capacity of the institution up to 878. Between each building were tunnels, enabling staff and patients to move easily from one to another. In recent years, as the buildings have emptied, these tunnels have caused many security problems. The tunnels will be torn up as the buildings are demolished.
From the beginning, a farm was attached to CSH. The farm, which had a large dairy herd, pigs, chickens, and turkeys grew feed for the cattle, in addition to vegetables and fruit.
In addition to providing food for the institute, the farm also made money for the state. The profit between July 1925 until November 1930 was $6,115.58.
The farm provided jobs and work training for patients, who were primarily epileptics in the early years. Thirty to 40 patients worked on the farm in the summer, with an additional 150 working in the garden. Six to 10 boys were responsible for milking the cows by hand.
Farm buildings were located to the south of the cottages, and the fields filled the acreage in front of the facility. Also, 75 acres on the west side of the river were tilled, accessed by a 134-foot steel bridge which had been dismantled and moved down river from what is currently Cambridge City Park.
Mechanization changed farming. In the early days, most of the patients were epileptics, but more and more patients suffered from greater disabilities as the epileptics were moved back into the community, they found it difficult to handle the new machines. Also, it became harder across the board for small farms to thrive. And so, the farm began to lose money and was shut down in June of 1961. Oscar Lee Anderson, farm supervisor from 1935 to 1961 told Marcia Miller during a 1984 interview, “When the tractors were sold, the boys cried.”
The farm house was sold and moved two miles east of Grandy, and the main barn moved to Day.
While CSH patients were taught skills such as farming, gardening, shoe repairing, painting, carpentry, general maintenance, dairying (men), tailoring, plain sewing, mending, laundry work, baking, dishwashing and general housework (women), for 30 years the general attitude was that the patients would never be returned to normal society and must be taught what would make their lives happier and more useful in the institution.
Various medical experiments were conducted over the years, beginning with the first in 1928 when a group of patients was placed on a special ketogenic diet to evaluate the effect upon epilepsy. The experiment was conducted through the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota. Later research evaluated various epileptic medications.
There have been some very dark spots in the facility’s history. In the 1960s a staff person was murdered in Cottage 5 when three residents tried to escape. When the man wouldn’t give up his keys, he was stabbed in the chest. The threesome did escape, but were caught shortly after. One was charged with murder. In the 1970s, one client killed another by strangulation.
Over the years residents enjoyed dances, picnics, summer festivals, movies, ball games, television, radio and music. In fact. many residents were involved in musical groups in the 1930s. In 1930 the music department presented two operettas. There was a 14-piece orchestra developed, which grew to two fine orchestras of 22 instruments apiece, in addition to a 21-piece brass band.
In 1966 a camping program for residents was started, which grew into a non-profit corporation, Camp New Hope, Inc., that purchased a 40-acre camp site on Glacier Lake north of McGregor in 1968.
State hospital residents involved in 4-H earned ribbons at the Isanti County Fair. In 1968, Linda Thompson was the first CSH resident to graduate from Cambridge Senior High School.
Until 1949 the institution was known as the Minnesota Colony for Epileptics; Minnesota was one of 11 states which had special facilities for epileptics. During that time the fundamental principles employees lived by were:
• Every patient sent to this institution is expected to receive the greatest possible benefit thereform, physically, morally and mentally.
• Under no circumstances is rudeness or harshness permitted. The spirit of kindness must everywhere prevail.
• Let the educational spirit predominate. Teach, teach and teach again. Most of the patients are eager to learn such things as they can understand. Teach how to put clothing on and fasten it up, to wash the faces and hands, comb the hair, lace their shoes, scrub the floor, sweep, set the table, shovel coal, wheel dirt, hoe corn or potatoes, carry feed for stock, etc.
The rule was kindness, but in reality staffing levels prevented adequate care. In 1934, for example, there were 866 patients to 119 employees. Staffing levels during World War II got worse, when the facility ran on a skeletal staff. At one time, the facility attempted to enlist the help of older, less disabled patients in feeding others, which was not very effective, according to longtime employee Roger W. Anderson of Cambridge. Another method tried was that of pairing older residents with younger ones, which did foster a sense of family.
 Although the stigma attached to the facility was great, Anderson praises the people who staffed the institution throughout the years of its greatest changes. During the decades he worked at the CSH, Anderson says “there were some of the nicest staff out there who did what they could with what they had… There’s been a lot of caring people.” He pointed out, “It was always understaffed and underfunded. It was sad… it really was  a warehouse because staffing was so low and patients needed so much assistance.”
He added that the stigma attached to the facility was created in part by the people who had family living there.
Conditions were improved in 1949 after the Legislature passed the Mental Health Act, calling for, among other things, that employees eat the same food as patients. Things improved again after the Welsh case rocked state hospitals across Minnesota in the 1970s. Along with the staffing improvements were physical plant improvements, Anderson observed. 
Also, as the facility was downsized it got more manageable. The population peak reached 2008 in 1962, shortly after new buildings Boswell and McBroom were opened. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the state embarked on its regionalization program, moving residents to facilities closer to their homes. The facility was renamed the Cambridge Regional Treatment Center (RTC). Between 1967 and 1973 the population at CSH dropped in half, from 1,400 to 700.
In July 1972, the first home-like units opened at CSH, Dellwood North and South, 16-bed cottages. Focus moved from institutionalization to rehabilitation.
The facility began to parcel off property, deeding 27 acres to the Cambridge-Isanti School District (where the bus garage and government  center are currently). In 1967, all the property on the west side of the Rum River was transferred to the city for use as a park (West Park). In 1974, the Legislature authorized transferring eight acres to the Memorial Hospital. Property has also been transferred to the Department of Natural Resources.
From 1973 to 1974, CSH experienced a complete reorganization, moving from a medically-orientated facility to a program-orientated one. Each resident was involved in six hours of programming per day, five days a week.
The entire facility was completely restructured in 1996 as the Minnesota Extended Treatment Options program (METO) under the leadership of Mike Maus. As other state hospitals across the state – Faribault, Moose Lake, St. Peters, Fergus Falls, Brainerd – began closing their doors, there was a need for a specialized treatment program for those who had problems functioning outside the institution. The task force developed in the 1990s to close CSH realized that there was a need to serve people with mild retardation and behavorial problems. “METO was developed to fulfill that need,” Maus explained.
METO is fixing to put itself out of business, however, as it rehabilitates more and more individuals and sends them back out into society. Program participants decrease each year; however, the length of stay is also increasing and is now hovering around two years.
In addition, CSH offers community support services in order to head off problems before they start so that the developmentally disabled don’t need to leave the community, Maus said.
Maus pointed out that “the future of the program will continue to be in question” if they continue to do their jobs, that of rehabilitation.
The targeted staff to patient ratio is now 2.2 to 1, a marked difference from decades earlier. The typical patient is a male in his early 20s. However, it is probably the perception of clients which has changed the most in the past 75 years. “Clients come here and they leave. That is really important,” Maus said.
Recently, 80 acres have been sold to the city of Cambridge, which plans to develop the property in a mix of single family homes, townhouses and apartments, with space for a community center and parks and trails. This summer, Boswell, McBroom and Cottages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12 and 14 will be torn down, with the exception of the Main Building. Maus expects funding for the demolition of the Main Building to be available this fall. The former infirmatory has been renovated to provide offices for METO, and the auditorium has been remodeled and will stay. Berms will be installed to shield the new development from the state facility.
Creating something else out of this site which sits in the center of Cambridge makes sense to Maus. But for others, hearing of plans to bring the buildings down provokes sadness. It is the end of an era.

Thanks to Roger W. Anderson and Mike Maus for their recollections of the changes that have occurred at the Cambridge State Hospital. Anderson is currently working on a book about the facility. Anyone who would like to share a story about the institution is welcome to contact him at 763-689-3924 or reogerminnesota@starband.net.

This article is based on research compiled by Anderson, a report written by Marcia Miller in 1984, and a series of articles which ran in the Cambridge Star commemorating the facility’s 50th birthday.

* Article appeared in the 2003 Isanti County Traveler published by the STAR newspaper.