SALEM, Ore.: They called them “lunatics” and “idiots” and, of course, in a famous book and Oscar-winning film both created right here in Oregon, people who lived in a “Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Now, visitors to the new Oregon State Hospital Museum of Mental Health can decide for themselves as they peruse the histories of some of the thousands of patients – along with decades’ worth of other artifacts –
who have walked through the hospital’s doors during its 130-year history.
Kathryn Dysart, a volunteer at the museum and one of 15 members on its board, hopes it will simultaneously educate the masses and help remove the stigma often attached to those who suffer from various illnesses of the mind.
“Our goal is to tell the story of the people who lived and worked in the hospital,” Dysart said during a tour of the museum. “And, also, to raise the issues of mental illness. There is no one in the world who hasn’t been touched by mental illness or doesn’t know someone who has been touched by it.”
The museum opened on Oct. 6, about six months after the final buildings of the new, state-of-the-art Oregon State Hospital were completed during an impressive remodeling project.
The museum is housed in the only part of the original hospital, which opened in 1883 as the Oregon State Insane Asylum that remains. It is on the first floor of the red-brick Kirkbride U Building on the hospital’s campus, which lies just north of the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Just north of the hospital, across Center Street, is the Dome Building that once belonged to OSH but is now part of the state Department of Corrections. The Dome Building is where moviegoers first laid eyes on the handcuffed character of R.P. McMurphy – played by Jack Nicholson in the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” based on Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same name – as he arrived at the hospital from prison for evaluation.-AP
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