Carolina In My Mind James Taylor

Carolina In My Mind James Taylor
Growing up I would hear about “Bull Street.” The South Carolina State Hospital in Columbia dates back to 1821 and was first known as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum. It was never called the South Carolina Mental Hospital or any other name, it was always just called “Bull Street”. It was always understood by us, at that time, that this is the place where people were sent if they were ‘crazy’. I understood what went on there, do you?

In 1822, the corner stone for the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum was laid. It became an asylum of such notoriety that to say you were at “Bull Street” captured the image in the public mind and in Carolina vernacular. Its time came and went with the introduction of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs and localized mental health service. The building had been designed by the the "famous" architect, Robert Mills. This made South Carolina the second state in the country at that time to put money aside for such a building for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. That one building quickly grew into a ‘mini’ city of its own accord.

Men and women were held in separate buildings. Slaves and servants had their own building. During the Civil War, the grounds were used as a prison camp for Union officers until 1865. After the war, things were on a teeter-totter at the asylum. Money was running short and supplies for the patients were hard to obtain.

In the 1950’s it held over 5,000 patients! However, the population declined to a more manageable 3,000 by the 1970’s. Guess where mum did her graduate studies and eventual employment throughout much of my later childhood? As the South Carolina State Hospital shrank she moved with my father's law practice to Florence South Carolina and Pee Dee Mental Health Center...

William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute (where my mother was trained and I spent time there as she came and went.) opened its doors in 1964, as a result of the dedicated efforts of William S. Hall, M.D., South Carolina's Department of Mental Health's first state commissioner. Legislation in 1965 amended the SC Code of Laws to make a special provision for Hall Institute to be maintained as a teaching hospital for the primary purposes of training mental health personnel and conducting psychiatric research.

This hospital was licensed by the state of South Carolina as a Specialized Hospital with a separately-licensed 37 bed Residential Treatment Facility for Children and Adolescents. It provided in-patient psychiatric services, treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse or addiction, and residential treatment for adolescents. Patients are admitted from throughout the state with referrals from community mental health centers, juvenile parole boards, Department of Social Services, the family court system and the Department of Juvenile Justice. The majority of patients are admitted through probate court, family court, or are voluntary admissions. Outpatient services include the Assessment and Resource Center. The facility was located on the property of the former South Carolina State Hospital, it had moved to the campus of the Werber Bryan Psychiatric Hospital.