I am trying to find information on a mental hospital in Sedro Woolley! My uncle told me my great grandmother died in a mental hospital in Sedro Woolley. Her name was Sara Dines and she died in either 1932 or 1933. She was not from Skagit county.
Any information would be a great help
Thank You
Mary

The name of the mental hospital in Sedro Woolley (Skagit County) was Northern State Hospital. It, and its records, no longer exist. My father was always told that his father died in the flu epidemic of 1918 in a hospital in Seattle. His brief obituary said that he died at home in Tacoma after a short illness. Imagine my shock when I got the death certificate and it said he had died of "paralysis of the insane" after an incarceration of 8 months in this hospital! His death certificate indicates that there were extenuating documents attached to the certificate (or filed with it). I have had lengthy long-distance phone chats with both the Washington State Board of Mental Health and the Vital Records Department in Olympia and they have either found nothing or never gotten back to me. One clerk did say that Northern State was the only hospital in Sedro Wooley and sometimes when people died, a doctor from there would be the certifying offical on the death certificate and that would cause the certificate to be filed with the hospital's address, rather than the residential address of the decedent.

Send your request for information to Washington State's Northwest Regional Archives in Bellingham at the following e-mail address. jcopher@cc.wwu.edu or to James.Copher@wwu.edu

Send your request for information on Northern State Hospital (Skagit County) to Washington State's Northwest Regional Archives at one of the following addresses: jcopher@cc.wwu.edu or James.Copher@wwu.edu

I was born in Sedro Woolley, not far from Northern State Hospital. I thought I might be able to tell you what I know about the place itself. It was not only a hospital but a huge complex of buildings and pastures and farming operations. I remember all the black and white cows as a child. The fields on the complex were full of hundereds, if not thousands, of cows. The complex was located on several hundered acres. I believe the patients of the hospital were required to work and maintain all the farming operations. The place itself is beautiful. Many of the buildings remain and the farmland and fields are still there as well. However, that is all about to change. The county is going to turn the complex into an enormous recreation site. The planning is already underway. I would like to see them preserve some of the history, but I have not seen any preservation mentioned in any of the planning. I have included a link to an article about the early history of the hospital www.geocities.com/skagitjournal/NorternState1.html

Records from Northern State Hospital do exist. Records from the hospital are with the Washington State Archives in Bellingham. Patient medical records are with the WA State Dept. of Social and Health Services.

The records generally cannot be perused, but patient-specific inquiries can be made with the State Archives in Bellingham.

if this link for the Washington digital archives doesn't work
http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/4CCADA0B48D3F0...

Memorial Hospital (not a mental hospital)was opened in 1920 in Sedro-Woolley. See page 5 of this article: http://www.wsha.org/files/62/CenturyofService.pdf. I have a vague memory of hearing of another hospital existing before then -- some story about my great-grandparents' giant bathtub coming from the old hospital when it was torn down.