Agnews Insane Asylum - Santa Clara, CA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

This center was originally known as the "The Great Asylum for the Insane". In 1885, it was established as a facility for the care of the mentally ill. During it's years of operation it was renowned for it's compassionate and progressive treatment of it's patients.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was a disaster for this site. Not only structurally but also in the amount of lives lost. It became know as the Santa Clara Valley's greatest loss of life with the loss of 117 patients and staff. These individuals were buried in mass graves on the site.

After this disaster, it was reconstructed circa 1911 as Agnews State Mental Hospital. The facility was a small self-contained town, including a multitude of construction trade "shops", a farm which raised pigs and vegetable crops, a steam generating power plant for heating the buildings by steam, and even a fire department.

At the time, it boasted the largest population in the South San Francisco Bay area, and was served by its own train station which stood at the west end of Palm Drive across Lafayette Street; the station building remained until vandalism and fire precipitated its demolition in the 1990s.

The original campus was closed in 1998.

Street address: 4000 Lafayette Ave Santa Clara, CA USA 95054 County / Borough / Parish: Santa Clara Year listed: 1997 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Person, Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1900-1924, 1925-1949 Historic function: Health Care Current function: Health Care Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Privately owned?: Not Listed Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/12/2007 ucdvicky visited it

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