- Davidson County -

Central State Hospital, Nashville, TN

The General Assembly, by act of October 19, 1832, appropriated $10,000 to erect a "State Lunatic Asylum" in the suburbs of the city of Nashville. It was replaced by the "Tennessee Hosptal for the Insane" which opened its doors on March 1, 1852, six and half miles south-easterly from Nashville on Murfreesboro Pike. The new building had a frontage of 407 feet and was situated on 250 acres. Another 200 acres was added in 1855. In 1866 an asylum for the colored insane was erected on the property several hundred yards south-westerly from the main building.(see history)

Like many other institutions of the kind it was built with grand intentions. As early as 1865 the Superintendent admitted that the asylum could not hope to strive for the goals of moral treatment under existing conditions and yet it struggled on. In 1891 a fire swept through the west wing and threatened its existance and yet the institution struggled on.

Through the years the institution has had several name changes. From Tennessee Hospital for the Insane to Central Hospital for the Insane and finally becoming Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute. In 1995 the institute moved to a new site in the Nashville suburb of Donelson. In 1999 the buildings were demolished and replaced with a Dell computers manufacturing plant.