Oregon State Insane Asylum

Oregon State Insane Asylum was erected in 1883 on Asylum Avenue in the capital city of Salem. The foreboding and deteriorating insane asylum is the oldest in operation on the West Coast.

The patient population climaxed at 3,545 in 1958 and continues to house 650 lunatics during the present day. Asylum Avenue is now Center Street while the institution name is now Oregon State Hospital or OSH.

The ominous institution blankets 144 acres along both sides of Center Street through the heart of Salem. A total of 70 building are scattered across the campus, all constructed between 1883 and the mid-1950’s

In January 2008, The United States Department of Justice threatened a massive lawsuit if the atrocious conditions endured by patients were not alleviated in a timely manner. The DOJ deemed conditions to abhorrently infringe upon the constitutional rights of patients.

In March of 2008, the entire 125-year-old, 144-acre psychiatric facility was added to the National Register of Historic Places.


OSH provided a filming location for the 1976, Academy Award-winning, cinematic cult classic starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, originally written by legendary author Ken Kesey who died in 2001.

The following website provides a fantastic interview with Jack Nicholson describing what it was like filming at this nefarious institution and the surrounding community of Salem: www.preservehistoricsalem.com/2007/09/21 /8/.

The largest, oldest, and most famous structure within the institution is the J Building, built in 1883. This building served as the location for virtually all interior movie scenes of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

The Oregon State Government wanted to demolish the J Building in 1988 due to life-threatening health and safety dangers posed to patients and staff. There is an abundance of lead-based paint and asbestos throughout the building.

Presently, the J Building is on the brink of collapse and mostly abandoned. Patients continue to be held in remodeled portions, but many believe that a minor earthquake could send the dilapidated structure and patients to their demise.

In 1923, The growth in the application of Social Darwinism principles within state institutions blossomed into the Board of Eugenics, which allowed for the "sterilization of all feeble-minded, insane, epileptics, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sexual perverts who are a menace to society."

The board reasoned that the gene pool would be stronger if "defective" individuals were not allowed to breed. Sterilization was frequently used as a condition of release from state institutions or to punish people who misbehaved. The board was finally abolished in 1983.

By 1929, 300 patients had been sterilized. One early modern advocate of the Eugenics movement was Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. The movement was fueled by massive amounts of funding from wealthy American industrialists John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie in the 1920’s.

On December 2, 2002 the Governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber publicly apologized for the forced sterilization of 2,500 individuals in Oregon during the Eugenics movement. Of the 65,000 forced sterilizations performed in the country from 1917 to 1983, only eight other states performed more than Oregon.



~The Past and the Future of Mental Institutions in Oregon~

Government-supported care of the mentally ill in Oregon began in 1843. The care of "lunatics" was contracted to private individuals who bid to care for them.

In 1862, Oregon’s governor awarded a contract to a private institution to care for the state's insane persons. This contract was awarded to the Hawthorne Asylum in East Portland.

The Hawthorne Asylum (also known as the Oregon Hospital for the Insane) cared for the states mentally ill from 1864 to 1883.

In 1880, the government appropriated money for construction of a new state hospital for the insane in the capital city of Salem.

In October of 1883, 372 patients were transferred from the Hawthorne Asylum to the new insane asylum entitled Oregon State Hospital or OSH. OSH continues operations today, imprisoning the mad in its 627-bed asylum.

Peering into the future, state officials plan to replace the current OSH with two new insane asylums: a 620-bed facility by 2011, on the existing OSH site in Salem, and a 360-bed asylum in Junction City by 2013.