Psychiatric Hospital Has a Long History in Wauwatosa

Before the psychiatric hospital was established in 1884, the property was owned by Oliver Harwood, namesake of Harwood Avenue. He and his wife, Clarissa, and five children moved to Wauwatosa in 1852.

On 15 acres he purchased from Charles Hart, Harwood built a large house on what today is Dewey Avenue. That house, no longer standing, later was used by the sanitarium as an administration building.

Harwood, a miller, was wealthy enough to also have a piano toted from his former home in Rushville, NY, to Wauwatosa. That piano was a first for Wauwatosa. After he died at age 62 in 1867, his estate left money for a library.

The Harwood Library and Lecture Association was formed in 1886, and the first library building, at Harwood and Milwaukee avenues, bore his name.

By the time the library association had been founded, none of the Harwoods were still alive. Tuberculosis claimed the lives of three daughters and a son in early adulthood. Clarissa died at age 77 in 1880, and Harwood’s last surviving son died a year later.

In 1884, the Milwaukee Sanitarium was founded and capital stock was raised to buy Harwood’s property. The sanitarium association appointed James McBride to establish and run the hospital. McBride had been superintendent of the nearby Milwaukee County Hospital for the Insane since it opened in 1880.

At first, the sanitarium consisted of Harwood’s farmhouse and a three-story building that could accommodate 15-20 patients and attendants.

More land later was purchased and an addition was put onto the farmhouse to handle up to 40 patients.

Aurora’s archivist, Jon Van Beckum, wrote that the hospital established a reputation that attracted people from throughout the Midwest who were seeking treatment, rest and recuperation. Patients often arrived by train, which stopped nearby along State Street.

Some patients were celebrities. Even before privacy laws, ethical standards long prohibited disclosing the identities of those patients. But one troubled star rumored to have been treated in Wauwatosa was Judy Garland. Garland died in 1969 at age 47. The cause of death was a barbiturate overdose.

McBride retired in 1895 and moved to California. He was succeeded by Richard Dewey, who was superintendent until 1919.

Dewey was editor of the American Journal of Insanity, now the American Journal of Psychiatry, “and was an internationally known and respected leader in psychiatry,” Van Beckum wrote.

Dewey introduced a “cottage system” in which patients stayed in smaller, self-contained cottages, based on whether they were deemed curable or incurable.

A dormitory for nurses, office buildings and a bath house were added in 1896 and 1897. The bath house was equipped with the first hydrotherapeutic apparatus to be installed west of the Allegheny Mountains, Van Beckum wrote.

More buildings followed in 1905 and 1906. A gymnasium was fitted with the “Zander apparatus,” designed for passive exercises, including “vibratory” treatment.

After John Flammang Schrank tried to assassinate former President Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee in 1911, Dewey served as chairman of a committee that declared Schrank insane.

Dewey retired in 1919 and moved to California.

The private hospital continued to grow and remained profitable, even during the Great Depression. It didn’t become a nonprofit hospital until 1954.

With an additional land purchase, the campus grew to 32 acres.

The Milwaukee Sanitarium changed its name in 1964 to Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital to reflect the shift from “rest” to treatment. Also that year, Kradwell High School was opened on the campus to meet educational needs during lengthy inpatient stays.

Under financial pressure, the hospital affiliated with Aurora Health Care in 1993. The hospital’s name was changed in 2001 to Aurora Psychiatric Hospital.