Building #60 / Memorial Building - Oregon State Hospital Historic District - Salem, Oregon
Posted by: 
ddtfamily
N 44° 56.264 W 123° 00.303
10T E 499601 N 4976033
Historic contributing Memorial Building at Oregon State Hospital
Waymark Code: WMGQ1V
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 03/30/2013
Views: 5
This Greek Revival style brick structure, known as Building #60, was formerly located at a point just south of the long extension of the "J" building, in the heart of the Oregon State Hospital's south campus. Built in 1896, it originally served as a morgue and later, a paint shop. In 1949, another structure known as "Building #75" was attached to it and the combined building served as the hospital crematorium and morgue.
A 2005 New York Times article chronicled the nearly 3,500 copper canisters containing the cremated and forgotten remains of patients who lived and died at the hospital from the 1880s through the 1970s. The article called attention to the long overdue need for lawmakers to decide on the fate of the "decaying campus of the Oregon State Hospital."
As part of the Oregon State Hospital replacement project that began in 2008, Building #75 was demolished and Building #60 moved to its present location. The proposed use of the structure, approved by the city's historic landmarks commission, is to serve as a memorial to display the copper urns (with the actual ashes buried in separate containers in a courtyard). Public comments on the proposal vary - many support the effort as an appropriate re-use of the building and important step to memorialize the unclaimed remains while others criticize the design due to the proposed alterations of this historic structure for the public display of the empty canisters that once held human remains. At the present time, the memorial remains unfinished.
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