Back in its heyday as one of the largest employers in town, the Austin
State Hospital’s lush grounds were the place to be for young couples on Sunday
afternoons. More than 100 years later, the place is still hot, hot, hot. But
most of the courting going on is between real estate investors and the State of
Texas.
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.
This article appears in September 29 • 1995 and September 29 • 1995 (Cover).