Title: Dunn County Health Care Center Records
Inclusive Dates: 1891-1978

Creator:

• Dunn County Health Care Center (Wis.)

Call Number: Dunn Series 166; PH Dunn Series 166

Quantity: 2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes, 1 flat box, 1 oversize folder) and photographs

Repository:

Housed at the University Archives and Area Research Center, Library Learning Center, University of Wisconsin-Stout; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Stout Library Learning Ctr. / Stout Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Records of a Dunn County institution originally founded as the Dunn County Asylum for the Chronic Insane (1892) and the Dunn County Poor House (later known as the Dunn County Home). During the 1940s, the two institutions became the Dunn County Hospital and Home. In 1972, a new facility that included a nursing home and a psychiatric unit was opened under the name Dunn County Heath Care Center. The records primarily document the institutions' financial history. Included are unpublished annual reports, audit reports by the Wisconsin Tax Commission, and reimbursement bills submitted to the state and other counties. Patient records primarily consist of lists of original residents of the asylum, residents from the 1930s and 1940s, and a population movement book, 1955-1970, although additional information about individual patients is included in other records in the series. Miscellaneous records include minutes of the original asylum building commission (which included J. H. Stout and A. R. Hall), architectural plans and photographs, brochures, employee rules and lists, property inventories, a patient diary dated 1915-1916, a journal of crops raised, and leases.

Note:

There is a restriction on access to this material; see the Administrative/Restriction Information portion of this finding aid for details.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-dunn0166

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In 1881, the Wisconsin Legislature began a system of county asylums in order to cope with overcrowding in state psychiatric facilities. Each of the county institutions was to be managed by the county but overseen by the newly created State Board of Supervision of Wisconsin Charitable, Reformatory and Penal Institutions (later the State Board of Control). The Legislature provided that, with its consent, any county could erect an asylum on land purchased for that purpose so long as plans and specifications met with the approval of the State Board. Each county asylum was governed by a board of three trustees selected by the county board of supervisors. These asylums housed all inmates from state institutions who were deemed to have chronic conditions, as well as all mentally ill inmates residing in local poor houses and others whom a county judged to be insane. Initially, each county asylum received $1.50 per week from the state for the subsistence of each patient.

The Dunn County Asylum for the Chronic Insane was one of the state system of county asylums. Its establishment in 1891 was recommended by a special committee appointed in 1889 by the Dunn County Board of Supervisors. Between 1889 and 1891, this committee conducted research and visited asylums in Dodge, Jefferson, Iowa, Dane, Outagamie, and Racine counties. Dunn County, the committee argued, stood to benefit greatly from its own institution as the county was supporting 49 patients in other county asylums and building its own facility would be more economical.

The Dunn County Asylum, which could accommodate over 100 inmates, was located two miles east of Menomonie in the town of Red Cedar, down the road from the already existing Dunn County House. Its first board of trustees included J. H. Stout, A. R. Hall, and William H. Smith. The asylum operated on an “open door” policy which meant that patients were unrestrained and allowed to move about the property. Institutional philosophy emphasized the value of work as therapy and the asylum employed patients in its substantial farming and dairying operations and in maintaining the household. The institution often produced more farm products than it could consume, and it regularly sold crops, milk, cream, and meat products to other institutions and individuals.

The Dunn County Poor House, situated on Bullard Hill in an older brick building adjacent to the asylum grounds, came under the same management as the Dunn County Asylum in 1892. It could accommodate approximately 25 inmates, most of whom were indigent elderly. This institution later became known as the Dunn County Home.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the Dunn County Asylum and Home had come under the supervision of the State Department of Public Welfare, and in 1947 the institution changed its name to the Dunn County Hospital and Home. This name change was intended to reflect transformations in state law which extended the services offered by the facility to include both the acute and chronic mentally ill and individuals with chemical addictions. In 1948, the Dunn County Home, which had begun to witness a decline in the number of residents during the Depression, became a private nursing home. The decline in patient numbers and the subsequent decision to lease the building were rooted in the establishment of a national old age pension system in the 1930s that allowed many of the former residents to live independently.

By the middle of the 1960s, the Dunn County Hospital needed additional beds and improvements in its old, decaying facility. In 1966, the Welfare Committee of the Dunn County Board embarked upon a three-year study of the problems facing the hospital. In 1969, the committee recommended that the board construct a new facility that would add 100 beds. In 1972 this facility, overseen by the State Department of Health and Social Services, was opened as the Dunn County Health Care Center. The new facility initially housed a nursing home on the first floor and a psychiatric unit on the second floor. It also had facilities for the treatment of alcoholism. In 1970, the main barn burned and dairy operations ceased. Other farming operations ended in 1978. The original asylum building was demolished in 1979.

The records document the administrative, financial, and patient history of the Dunn County Health Care Center operating under its various earlier names from 1891 to 1972. The records are arranged into three groups: ADMINISTRATIVE AND FINANCIAL RECORDS, PATIENT RECORDS, and MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS. The records as a whole are heavily weighted towards the financial aspects of the institution's history and offer limited insight into the lives of patients or policy management of the institution. A few records contain patient names and are therefore restricted.

The chief administrative documentation of the Dunn County Hospital and Home consists of printed annual reports. A run of these reports that is relatively complete from the two institutions' founding to 1960 is held by the SHSW Library Government Documents Section, and the UW-Stout Area Research Center has additional copies from 1929 through 1970. These reports contain narrative information of varying detail in the reports of the institutions' superintendents and physicians, as well as financial information and statistical information about general operations. In the absence of the standard administrative sources (e.g correspondence of the superintendent), these reports are invaluable.

Dunn Series 166 includes unprinted annual reports submitted to the State Board of Control that contain summary financial information and statistical data about the resident population. The asylum reports contain information on the use of restraint and isolation. The poor house reports contain data on the causes of pauperism. After 1926 the state reports are strictly financial.

The financial records make up the largest part of the records series. Unlike the reports to the State Board of Control, which document the early history of the institution, the financial records mainly document the decades between the 1930s and the 1960s. These files consist of yearly audit reports of both the asylum and poor home and state and county bills. The annual audit reports were prepared by the Wisconsin Tax Commission (later the Wisconsin Department of State Audit) and provide statistical and narrative analyses of the institution's financial condition between 1932 and 1964. Topics covered include assets and liabilities, insurance, investments, and revenues from barn, farm, and garden sales. The audits of the county home resemble those of the asylum, but they also include lists of patients arranged by town of origin and then alphabetically by last name. These lists provide information about length of stay, cost for care, and other expenses.

The state and county bills, also known as certified statements, provide yearly documentation of the amount owed for patient care both by the state and by individual counties for patients in the Dunn County facility. These records date from 1943 to 1960 and are arranged chronologically and then alphabetically by county. The state and county bills are particularly valuable because, aside from the financial information contained therein, they are the only records in the series that identify residents during the 1940s and 1950s. These bills document individuals by name, identify patients admitted or discharged during the year, the length of stay for which the county or state is being billed, costs of clothing and other miscellaneous necessities, and the total amount due. Earlier bills, 1917-1931, consist only of copies of invoices sent to private individuals who were financially responsible for a resident's care. The financial records also include a journal, 1938-1952. While it contains information available elsewhere in some form, it also contains useful details and accounting justification.

The series also includes one volume of original minutes of the Dunn County Asylum Building Commission. The building commission, consisting of J. H. Stout, William Miller, and A. R. Hall, was appointed by the Dunn County Board in 1889 with the task of preparing plans and specifications for the erection of a county asylum building.

PATIENT RECORDS consist of an admission list dating from 1892, two lists of residents from the 1930s and 1940s, and a patient population book. These records provide the names of patients, their counties of origin, and their lengths of stay in the institutions, but little documentation of patient life or activities. The original admission list is a hand-written log documenting the first group of patients to be admitted to the asylum in 1892. The list is arranged chronologically by month and day. Attached to it is a breakdown of these original patients by county of origin and gender. Also included is an undated list of asylum patients that appears to date from the mid- to late-1940s; and an undated list of County Home residents that appears to date from the 1930s. The asylum list includes some dates of commitment and/or release. It is arranged by county and then alphabetically by name of patient. The patient population book documents the movement of residents in and out of the institution between 1955 and 1970. Arranged chronologically, the book lists patients entering or leaving the institution, together with a short note explaining the entry.

The MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS, which are arranged alphabetically by record type, consist of architectural plans and photographs, employee rules, property inventories, a patient diary, inventories, a journal of crops, rules, lists of employees, and leases. The architectural drawings and plans consist of elevations and floor plans primarily for the barn and the farm outbuildings, although there is a 1953 plot plan and floor plans for the hospital and an elevation and floor plan for the poor house. The photographs, the originals of which are housed in the Visual Materials Archive in Madison, consist of black and white prints and color transparencies of the hospital building. One aerial view is included.

The diary, perhaps the most unusual item in the series was kept by a male patient in 1915 and 1916. It includes a record of daily life, including his various cleaning and farming duties, his excursions to fairs and circuses, his observations about visitors, and the deaths of other patients. The leases and deeds include a 1917 lease for a dairy farm, a 1921 lease for a farm, and a 1927 quit claim deed for the same dairy farm. These three items provide some information about the attempts of the institution to expand farming operations during its early decades. The inventories contain a detailed listing of the institution's property and possessions. The inventories usually begin with a summary, which lists the total values for different categories of property, such as land and improvements, structures, machinery, furniture, livestock, office supplies, and medical supplies. A more detailed listing then follows. Aside from the 1930 inventory, which is accessed through an index, each inventory is arranged by structure and then by room. The monthly time books are small volumes dating from 1931 to 1960 that document the hours worked by individual hospital employees. They are arranged chronologically and then alphabetically by name. The journal of crops raised and consumed provides chronologically arranged information about farm, barn and garden items produced and consumed by the institution between 1943 and 1978, when farming ceased.

Acquisition Information

Accession Number: C1993/061, C1994/027, C1994/026, C1981/070

Access Restrictions

Records which identify individuals receiving care or aid are confidential under Wis. Stats. 51.30 and 49.001. Access to these records (in Box 4 and 5) is possible under certain circumstances however. Records more than 75 years old are open for research. Access to records less than 75 years old may be granted under the following conditions: 1) Prospective users submit to the Archives a written request describing the project to be undertaken, the records to be used, and the proposed product of their research; requests for information about specific individuals or cases will not be permitted; 2) Prospective users sign a written agreement that there shall be no disclosure, either directly or deductively, of personally identifiable information taken from these files; and 3) Photocopying of material by the researcher is prohibited.

Dunn Series 166	Series: Administrative and Financial Records
Box   1 Folder   1	Minutes of the Asylum Building Commission, 1891-1892
	Unprinted annual reports
Box   1 Folder   2-3	Asylum for the Chronic Insane, 1892-1926
Box   1 Folder   4-5	Poor House, 1892-1894, 1926
Box   1 Folder   6	Annual financial statements, 1926-1946
	Audit reports
Box   1 Folder   7-10	Asylum, 1932-1948
Box   1 Folder   11-14	Home, 1932-1947
Box   2 Folder   1-6	Combined, 1948-1964
Box   5 Folder   4	Bills (Guardians), 1917-1931
	Certified statements (State and county bills) (Restricted)
Box   5 Folder   1-3	1943-1947
Box   3 Folder   1-7	1948-1960
Box   4 Folder   1	Journal, 1938-1952
	Series: Patient Records	⇧
Box   4 Folder   8	Admissions list, 1892
Box   4 Folder   9	Patients lists, circa 1930s, circa 1940s (Restricted)
Box   4 Folder   10	Population movement book, 1955-1970 (Restricted)
	Series: Miscellaneous Records	⇧
Oversize_folder	Architectural plans and drawings
Box   4 Folder   2	Brochures and invitations, 1969-1972
Box   4 Folder   3	Commitment form, undated
Box   4 Folder   4	Diary, 1915-1916
Box   4 Folder   5	Employee rule books, 1939, circa 1940s
Box   4 Folder   6-9	Employee time records, 1931-1960
Box   6	Inventories, 1931-1970
Box   4 Folder   10	Journal of crops raised and consumed, 1943-1978
Box   6 Folder   1-6	Inventories
Box   4 Folder   11	Leases and deeds
	Photographs
Box   4 Folder   12	Photocopies
PH Dunn Series 166	Original prints and color transparencies