Lakin State Hospital | |
Status: | Repurposed Partially Demolished |
Location: | Lakin, West Virginia |
Native Name: | State Hospital for the Colored Insane |
Start Date: | 1919 |
Opened Date: | 1926 |
Destruction Date: | --> |
Former Names: | Lakin State Hospital for the Colored Insane |
Location Country: | United States |
Building Type: | Institutional |
Owner: | State of West Virginia |
Closing Date: | 1979 |
Material: | Foundation-Stone, Exterior-Brick, Roof-Slate |
Known For: | The only state hospital with an all black staff, including the superintendent |
Lakin State Hospital, originally known as the Lakin State Hospital for the Colored Insane, was a publicly-funded psychiatric hospital located along West Virginia Route 62 in Lakin, Mason County, West Virginia near Point Pleasant which operated from 1926 until 1979. During segregation and Jim Crow, the asylum was designated by the State of West Virginia to care for the "colored insane".[1] It would become one of only two known psychiatric institutions that was entirely run by people of color serving an all black population.[2] [3]