Ashland Tuberculosis Hospital
The Ashland Tuberculosis Hospital in Ashland, Kentucky was a tuberculosis medical facility for the northeast part of the state.
The Ashland Tuberculosis Hospital, constructed between 1946 and 1948, was for patients that had contracted tuberculosis, an infectious and contagious disease. The state provided $2.7 million towards the administrative and operational costs of the hospitals, which included regional complexes in London, Glasgow, Madisonville, and Paris. 2
The development of the drug streptomycin led to a dramatic decline of tuberculosis rates and deaths in the United States. 2 Most of the state tuberculosis hospitals in the state, including Ashland’s, closed in the late 1970s. The building was reused in the 1980s to 2005 as a Kentucky State Crime Lab and state office space. 1
Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky announced on February 27, 2008, that it would rehabilitate the former state hospital to provide permanent and supportive housing for women and children who were victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. 1 It would include a playground, meditation garden, ponds, and gardens. Interior renovations were finished by AU Associates, which included adding one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, a full-time daycare, a kitchen for vocational training, classrooms, and meeting rooms. All work was completed by the spring of 2009.
[…] Kentucky alone, there were seven tuberculosis hospitals in Ashland, Glasgow, Hazelwood, London, Louisville, Madisonville, and Paris. Another sizeable sanatorium, […]
That is amazing! I would love to hear more of your experiences.
I worked their as the school nurse when it was called the Ashland Youth Development Center. I had visited there as a nursing student in the 1960’s when it was an active TB hospital. If walls could talk these could tell a thousand tales. Some of the patients that were confined there hung themselves in the batheoom.
My father was a doctor there in the mid 1950s. We lived in a three unit apartment building on the grounds. There were I think on 6 kids living on the ground, and only one other boy, so all our games (including baseball) were two-handed.
Hello, I work at the facility myself. I was wondering if you knew the name Isaac Edwards and Dr. Therodeux (sp?)
When did they work there?
My father was a doctor there in 1963/4. Similar living situation on the grounds. I remember 3 or 4 other kids on the grounds, but quite a few more in the neighborhood behind us. Almost 60 years later, I’m planning to revisit the place soon just for the sake of nostalgia.