"During the Depression years, Dr. Frank Zimmerman (Superintendent from 1928 to 1961) took advantage of Works Progress Administration and Public Works Administration funds to build modern barns, feedlots and other buildings at the dairy. By 1938, there were 14 employees supervising 50 patients at the farm. After a diphtheria outbreak was traced to milk contamination that same year, a new pasteurizing plant was built. This new equipment insured that human hands never touched the milk. Machines milked the cows, the milk went into coolers, then to pasteurizing vats, then to the homogenizer, and then was bottled. Milk was poured into individual bottles rather than into large milk cans and transported to the main institution to avoid contamination by careless handling." (excerpted from (
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Other reference from newspaper article on (
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The Superintendents Office (still existing) appears to have used WPA skills. The only remnants of the Dairy Farm are foundations.
"CMHIP opened on October 23, 1879 as the Colorado State Insane Asylum on 40 acres of land in northwest Pueblo donated by George M. Chilcott, Colorado's first United States senator. The Institute grew from 12 patients to an all-time high of over 6,100 patients by 1961. Like many state psychiatric hospitals at that time, it was a self-contained city, providing all the patients' needs within 300 acres of land on the main grounds and 5,000 acres at the dairy farm. By 2008, however, the patient census declined to less than 500 patients, a result of the development of medications specifically for mental disorders, and a change in the philosophy and treatment of the mentally ill." (from (
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1899 Colorado State Insane Asylum Rules and Regulations (
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"The Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo opened as the Colorado State Insane Asylum on October 23, 1879. On that date, 11 patients were admitted, nine males and two females from 12 different counties of the state.
In 1917, the insane asylum was renamed the Colorado State Hospital. By 1923, the census the hospital climbed to 2,422 and continued to grow until 1961 when the hospital had nearly 6,000 patients.
In 1991 the Colorado Department of Human Services psychiatric facilities names were changed to Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan." (from (
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