Mental Hospital Cemetery

Today I was at the site of the old Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, WA. All the patients who died there were buried with a small cement marker that showed only a number. This was common practice at mental hospitals. Now, however, a lot of the dead have been identified and a granite marker with name, birth year and death year is in place. The hospital opened in 1876 and closed in 1956. This marker seemed particularly poignant as the birth year is absent. I'm sure most of these people spent their entire lives there after being committed since treatment of the insane was rudimentary at best.