In Southeast Washington, DC there are two St. Elizabeths Campuses. The original one is on the West side of Martin Luther King Ave. SE, owned by the US Government.

The original St. Es is a 176- acre campus on a prominent overlook and has a rich history. It was conceived in the 1850's as a hospital for humane treatment of mentally ill. Dorothea Dix, a social reformer, lobbied Congress; and in 1855 Congress approved the funding. It was intended for the mentally ill of the District of Columbia as well as the Army and Navy. This was the first such federally owned facility and became a prototype for many hospitals around the country. The original Center Building was built from bricks made on site. The site was chosen because it was a pastoral setting away from the main part of the city. The property had previously been a farm owned by the Blagden family, a prominent Washington family for which several streets in DC are named.

The campus had a farm early on and was self-sufficient. Life on campus was near normal for the less severely ill patients. The campus had a library, an auditorium, an activities center, a central dining facility. Classes, lectures, concerts, and plays were available to the patients. At its peak there were approximately 8,000 patients and 4,000 staff on campus. A friend, in a theatrical group at Andrews Air Force base in the 1960's, performed a play there and during the performance a patient got up from the audience and joined in. The actors played along with it and finally the patient sat back down. As odd as this seems, it could be the result of the psycho-drama classes held in the same building in a lower-level theatre in the round. The campus was used as a field hospital during the civil war and there is a cemetery on the campus where several patients and some members of the historic 54^th Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War are buried.

In the early 1980's the hospital lost its federal funding. The mental hospital was moved to a small, newer facility on the East Campus operated by the DC Government. In 1990 the campus was added to the National Historic Register. Many of the west campus buildings sat empty for years. In 2004 GSA gained ownership from Health & Human Services (HHS) and the campus was chosen to become the Department of Homeland Security Headquarters Campus to consolidate the many departments of DHS. The first building constructed was the 1.2 million square foot US Coast Guard Headquarters which was built on a west facing slope. It contains one of the largest green roofs in the world. The historic Center Building became the DHS Headquarters Building. From an overlook named "The Point" one can see DC, Bethesda, and much of the suburban Virginia development. Construction is ongoing today to develop the remaining portions of the campus for DHS.

P.S. There is no apostrophe in St. Elizabeths by historical acceptance. Congress omitted the apostrophe when writing the legislation to create the hospital.

Bill Willis, Retired Architect and, now NNV Board Member, supported GSA in Design and Construction Management as a consultant for 14 years on the St. Elizabeths West Campus.

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This is part of an occasional series of Weekly Update articles by NNV Board Members on topics of interest. Bill Willis joined NNV as a volunteer in 2023 and joined the Board earlier this year. Click here to read more about Bill and all of our other Board Members.