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St. Elizabeths Hospital facts for kids

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St. Elizabeths Hospital
District of Columbia
Center building at Saint Elizabeths, National Photo Company, circa 1909-1932.jpg
The Center Building at St. Elizabeths, dating to the American Civil War and one of the oldest on the campus, as it appeared in the early 20th century
Geography
Location 1100 Alabama Avenue, Southeast, Washington, D.C., United States
Organization
Funding Public hospital
Hospital type Specialist
Services
Speciality Psychiatric

St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast, Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health. It opened in 1855 with the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States. Housing over 8,000 patients at its peak in the 1950s, the hospital had a fully functioning medical-surgical unit, a school of nursing, accredited internships and psychiatric residencies. Its campus was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The west portion of the campus is home to over 1,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security personnel and serves as its headquarters. St. Elizabeth's Hospital campus also has the joint tenant of the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building with hundreds of Coast Guard personnel.

The campus grounds also contain the Saint Elizabeths Hospital East and West Cemeteries. Burials ground were performed on the West campus beginning in 1856. Approximately 450 graves of the Civil War veterans and an unknown number of civilian graves are buried on the West campus. In 1873, the three-quarter-acre West Campus burying ground was deemed full, and a new cemetery was opened on the East Campus. Approximately 2,050 military and 3,000 civilian interments occurred on the nine-acre cemetery on the East Campus over the next 120 years.

The hospital was under the control of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services until 1987, when ownership of its east wing was transferred to the District of Columbia. Since 2010, the hospital's functions have been limited to the portion of the east campus operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. The remainder of the east campus is slated for redevelopment by the District of Columbia, and the west campus is for use of the United States Department of Homeland Security headquarters and its subsidiary agencies.

Images for kids

  • Center building at Saint Elizabeths, August 23, 2006

    The Center Building at St. Elizabeths in 2006

  • Department of Homeland Security’s new headquarters is ceremoniously opened

    Opening ceremony for the new DHS headquarters in April 2019

  • Main Building at Saint Elizabeths, Washington D.C., August 23, 2006

    The Main Building on the western campus in 2006

  • AtkinsHall 2014 DSC0596

    Atkins Hall, home to U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office in 2014

  • Skyline of Washington, seen from Saint Elizabeths, August 23, 2006

    The view of the Washington, D.C., skyline from St. Elizabeths

  • St. Elizabeths Hospital, woman - Washington, D.C.

    An elderly patient at St. Elizabeths, ca. 1917

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