Crazy for the Asylum Grounds

Long before some 800,000 square feet of projects eventually end up on the 38.5-acre site next door to ASH, Hyde Park historian Sarah Sitton will have finished her book that captures the history of what originally was the state asylum. Sitton and her husband, Thad, wrote an earlier book on the first 50 years of Hyde Park, Austin's oldest residential "suburb" and pretty much of a compact city before compact was cool.

In its early years, the hospital was fairly well integrated into the Hyde Park neighborhood, even though it was two miles outside of town. "A lot of eccentric family members would end up there," says Sitton, who teaches psychology at St. Edward's University. "It was a good place to go and get away from the stresses of life." To the outside world, the beautiful grounds lent themselves to romance. Hyde Park couples rowed boats across a lake on the property or rode in a horse and buggy down the trails for picnics, about where Central Market's cheese department is today, and where a multi-family housing project will be tomorrow.

In their research of Hyde Park's beginnings, the Sittons uncovered some little-known facts about ASH as a self-sufficient community. They wrote: "It drew water from special artesian wells, grew most of its own food, raised its own livestock, had its own laundry and seamstress shop and operated its own barbershop." The place even had its own cemetery.

The advent of modern medicine, the Community Mental Health Act, and a more conscionable approach to treating mental illness have contributed to a steady decline in ASH's patient population, from 3,000 in the 1960s to 342 in 1995. But ASH authorities say there are no plans to close the facility altogether. Proceeds from development projects on the property have paid for the demolition of old buildings and will help fund a new print shop and the restoration of the Historical Main Building. With steady money like this coming in, ASH would do well to stick around. - A.S.