CHEROKEE MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTE

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The Cherokee Mental Health Institute is a state-run psychiatric facility in Cherokee, Iowa. It has operated from 1902 until the present day, currently under the authority of the Iowa Department of Human Services.HistoryEarly yearsAs early as 1890, a movement was begun to build a fourth mental hospital in the state and northwest Iowa was the logical location for it. The plan was to relieve crowding from the other hospitals in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Clarinda, Iowa, Independence, Iowa, In 1894, Cherokee residents started an active campaign to get the legislature to select their city for the new hospital. Many other northwest Iowa towns also vied for the hospital, including Sheldon, LeMars, Fort Dodge, Storm Lake and "Pocahontas Center." It took 14 ballots in the legislature to give Cherokee the hospital. The legislature appropriated $12,000 to purchase a site, but it was six and a half years after the first excavation before the administration building, sitting on bare prairie land, was ready for occupancy. There was a struggle each session of the legislature to get appropriations to continue with the building. The original plan for patients was to hold alcoholics, geriactrics, drug addicts, the mentally-ill, and the criminally-insane.The hospital was opened for patients on August 15, 1902 under the name "Cherokee Lunatic Asylum." The name changed several times over the years, going from "Iowa Lunatic Asylum" to "Cherokee State Hospital." The first Superintendent, Dr. N. Nelson Voldeng, worked all the summer to equip and ready it for 700 patients. From August 15 to August 26, eight patients were admitted. On August 26, 1902, 306 patients were transferred from Independence and two days later 252 from Clarinda. These patients were brought by special trains and met with teams and hayracks at the end of the Illinois Central Railroad spur and transported to the hospital. The dormitory for employees, built in the 1940's was named Wirth Hall in 1962 for the late J.E. Wirth, business manager here many years. The early years were dark and brutal for the patients.