Pueblo County Insane Asylum

Pueblo County, Colorado
Colorado Insane Asylum

The Dairy Farm

Holstein dairy herd shown in 1911 on southwestern edge of the South Campus before land was purchased for the dairy farm in 1922.
(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

During the early days (1879 to 1922) of the Colorado State Insane Asylum, dairy cows were kept on the far southwestern section of what is now the South Campus. As you can see from the picture, this was a highly unfavorable condition since there were patient occupied buildings close by. There were about 15 cows there in 1922 when the legislature granted the funding to buy 120 acres two miles west of the main grounds for a farm (located where the Nature Center is now).

Pueblo Star -Journal Publisher Frank Stephen Hoag, born in Minerva, Ohio, in 1871, moved to Colorado Springs with his wife, Louise, in 1901. Doctors recommended Colorado's dry climate as a cure for her tuberculosis. Hoag sold ads for a time for the Colorado Springs Gazette before taking a similar post with the Star-Journal some time in 1903. He became general manager in 1904 under principal stockholder and general manager John Vail with the understanding that Hoag would be allowed to buy the newspaper as soon as he could raise the money. That happened in 1918, the same year Hoag was appointed by the governor as manager of the State Board of Corrections. In that post, he was a strong voice for winning state funding for the Colorado State Hospital and prison projects in Southern Colorado. In 1922, he and others convinced the state to expand the hospital (then called an insane asylum) to include "farms" where patients and inmates could work, raising revenue for the hospital and offsetting costs to the state. Hoag bought The Pueblo Chieftain in 1933 from former U.S. Senator Alva B. Adams.

(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

Sylvester "Ves" Hughlitt was hired as production manager in 1922 and remained in this capacity for over 41 years. He and his wife Pearl, and daughter Joanne, lived in a quaint, little house on the grounds of the farm.

In 1922 the Hughlitt's moved into this small, one bedroom house on the dairy farm grounds. It was formerly a caretaker's house.
(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

During the first year of operation, the dairy produced 77,251 gallons of milk for patients.

Dairy herd judging school at the dairy farm in 1944. Every second year, the cows were classified by the Holstein Friesian Assn. Ves Hughlitt is the one wearing a hat.
(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

The hospital exhibited a number of animals at the Colorado State Fair for the first time in 1924, winning many first, second and third premium ribbons. By 1952, it had become one of the oldest continuous exhibitors at the Fair. Ves Hughlitt said there was no intent to build a show herd, that "good breeding was just good business." All registered cows and bulls raised at the hospital dairy bore the prefix, Colstah, an abbreviated trade name for Colorado State Hospital.

In 1926, the hospital bought the Woodcroft Sanitarium, a private psychiatric facility at 29th and Court Streets in Pueblo, from Dr. Hubert Work, its director and owner, and called it the Colorado State Hospital Annex. (Dr. Work also served a brief stint as interim superintendent in late 1899). Along with this purchase, came a few head of registered Holstein dairy cattle, which later turned out to be the foundation herd of the largest classified herd in the United States. The hospital didn't buy a single cow since that purchase; it was through buying good sires that the quality of the herd was raised.

During the Depression years, Dr. Frank Zimmerman (Superintendent from 1928 to 1961) took advantage of Works Progress Administration and Public Works Administration funds to build modern barns, feedlots and other buildings at the dairy.

(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

Patient dormitory at Dairy Farm in 1940. Built in 1938 as part of a WPA project, the dorm was large enough for 100 patients who worked the farm. The dorm was destroyed by fire in April of 1974. City firemen were not allowed to put out the fire since the farm was out of their jurisdiction.

By 1938, there were 14 employees supervising 50 patients at the farm. After a diphtheria outbreak was traced to milk contamination that same year, a new pasteurizing plant was built. This new equipment insured that human hands never touched the milk. Machines milked the cows, the milk went into coolers, then to pasteurizing vats, then to the homogenizer, and then was bottled.

Milk was poured into individual bottles rather than into large milk cans and transported to the main institution to avoid contamination by careless handling.
(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

The hospital dairy provided all the fresh milk needed for the patients-three glasses each a day. And, the dairy provided a form of rehabilitation for patients by giving them a trade to learn once they were discharged and also kept them busy during the day. In addition, a wide variety of vegetables were grown at the farm; i.e., string beans, beets, carrots, lettuce, onions, peas, peppers, corn, and tomatoes. Many of them were picked at the farm and taken to the main grounds for canning at the hospital's cannery.

Hospital Cannery in 1942. Patients performed most of the work here.
(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)

In late July 1897, the Colorado Insane Asylum awarded the Pueblo Flour Milling and Elevator Company the flour contract for the hospital's coming quarter. The asylum, operating in Pueblo, used 400 to 500 pounds of flour a day, totaling $1,200 per quarter.

During the food shortage of World War II, the hospital had its own canning plant using equipment from the abandoned WPA canning plant in town, but it was later discontinued since hospital officials feared that a single improperly processed metal can might cause sickness or even the death of a patient.

In 1958 a survey by the U.S. Public Health Service determined that the hospital farm should be studied from the standpoint of using it as a sheltered work and living situation for chronic patients, which could be operated by some other state agency. Although this situation never occurred, the report also studied the state's mental health programs and treatment for the mentally ill; Colorado State Hospital was about to be drastically changed.

In March of 1962, the hospital's 6,000 plus patient population was internally reorganized according to the county from which they were admitted (known as geographic decentralization) into smaller units for better care and treatment. Patients from the dairy farm were pulled back to the main grounds for treatment by their assigned treatment teams, leaving them unable to work the farm. In addition, the Fair Labor Standards Act required that patients be paid for their work, resulting in even more financial hardships for the hospital. Although it was reported that many of the patients were discouraged by this major change, some of them were able to be discharged from the hospital and went on to live meaningful lives in the community. Others, unfortunately, were never able to adapt because the dairy farm had become their only home.

A reduction in patient census of course meant fewer patients to feed. Thus, 167 cows were sold to dairymen throughout the state during the 1961-62 fiscal year, leaving 580 cattle; 267 of those were milking cows.

(photo courtesy of CMHIP Museum)
The dairy farm was moved 2 miles west of the main hospital grounds and operated from 1923 - 1964 with a herd of 700 Holstein cows. It was discontinued when patients were returned to the main hospital for treatment and discharge. The dairy farm in 1938. In 1961 when the farm was at its peak it produced 496,410 gallons of milk from 324 milking cows. The dairy farm at that time consisted of 144 acres and was part of a 5,000 acre complex with a piggery, vegetable garden and turkey farm.

In 1963, Ves Hughlitt retired, knowing in his own mind that the farm would soon be a thing of the past. And so it was. Even though a new production manager was hired in 1964 to replace him, the farm was soon transferred to the Colorado State Penitentiary for use as an honor farm. This was short lived, however, since the inmates were continually escaping from the open environment.

Today, the area is part of a nature center and only remnants remain of what was once one of the finest dairy farms in Colorado. A few stone walls and a small building or two can be seen while taking a walk on the trail along the Arkansas River, but the many operations of the dairy farm are only memories.
written by Nell Mitchell, CMHIP Historian

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