The "The Hellhole Of Pennsylvania" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking at photographs of the now defunct Pennhurst State School and Hospital located in Spring City, Pennsylvania.  The photographs show what appear to be beautiful buildings with landscaped grounds.  

An overall view of Pennhurst Site School and Hospital.

But the stories that are told about the place say it was a human "hellhole" for those that had to reside at the residence.  From 1903 to 1908 the first buildings were constructed on over 600 aces in Spring City, known as Crab Hill.  Each building had an alphabetical designation with the Girl's Dining Room being the "F" building, the "K" building being the "Cottage for Girls", the Teacher's Home being "Q" building, etc.  Some of the buildings opened in 1918 with most buildings completed with the Assembly building, which functioned as the gymnasium and auditorium, opening in 1929.  The architect for the older buildings was Philip H. Johnson.  They were made of red brick and terra cotta with granite trimmings.  They were connected by fire-proof tunnels with walkways on top of the tunnels for the use of transporting residents with a parallel stem piping system, and were distributed on what was 1,400 acres of land.  

Aa very eerie view of the main building on campus.

The buildings were designed to provide a large number of small rooms occupied by two to three beds, a few small dormitories with eight to ten beds and a large day room for exercise.  Mr. George Lovatt was the architect for several of the building constructed after 1937.  The Pennsylvania Railroad created a Pennhurst Station on its Schuylkill division to accomodate Pennhurst.  The tracks are still visible near several parts of the main campus.  The place opened on November 23, 1918 when "Patient #1" was admitted to the hospital.  Within four years the place was overcrowded and under pressure to admit immigrants, orphans and criminals.  

Another view of the same building.

Residents were classified as: imbecile or insane, epileptic or healthy and into dental categories of good, poor or treated teeth when admitted.  The property had everything a community could need with a barber shop, greenhouse, fire staton, movie theater and a general store.  But the place also rapidly devolved into a site synonymous with ovecrowding and neglect that caused adults and children who resided there to regress further and further from functionality.  Then in 1968 a documentary featuring the site titled "Suffer the Little Children" was produced wherein a visibly distraught reporter told of poor conditions including one interview with a doctor admitting to giving a bully who lived among the residents a painful injection so he wouldn't abuse others.  The facility was closed in 1986 after a multitude of physical and sexual abuse was discovered.  What at one time seemed to be the perfect treatment for those that didn't fit into society had turned into one of the worst imprisonments imaginable for those patients.  

It does look as if they had a shop course in the facility.

The mistreat- ment of the patients was hard to read about and made one ask...can it get any worse?  In a recent story written by Jack Brubaker, "The Scribbler" for the local newspaper, he told the story of Pennhurst.  One part of his column told of the residents who participated in tooth-brushing programs.  About half of the residents were being taught to brush their teeth.  

Another "spooky' look at one of the buildings on campus.

But, approximately a third of those residents had no teeth!  Seems dentists had been removing the teeth of those that were biting other residents.  If you bit another resident a second time, all your teeth were removed.  The horrors of the facility came to life more and more over the years.  How could anyone condone the treatment given to those living at Pennhurst.  A book was recently published that tells what went on inside the walls of the facility.  It is titled "Pennhurst and the Struggle for Disability Rights".  

And...I have no idea what this room might have been!

Jack Brubaker went on to tell that when Pennhurst opened, many prominent physicians and politicians supported the "science" of eugenics.  That is, they believed they could improve the human race by removing mental and physical "defectives" from it.  Pennhurst was one of about 300 of these such facilities.  Jack writes that the new book says that Pennhurst may eventually be turned into a historical museum that tells the story of the disability rights movement.  It already has led to the July 26, 1990 "Americans with Disabilities Act."  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.