| Additional Information: | The Milwaukee Sanitarium was established by Dr. James McBride in Wauwatosa in 1884 as a replacement for the Milwaukee Hospital for the Insane on the county grounds in Wauwatosa. The first site was a non-extant farmhouse on a fifteen-acre site along the south bank of the Menomonee River acquired from Oliver Harwood. In 1895, a non-extant three story building was constructed for the hospital. The same year, the cottage system, developed by Dr. Richard Dewey, was introduced. This system emphasizes self-contained and natural spaces, such as homes and wildlife, as aids to recovery, therapy, and development.
The private institution, renamed the Milwaukee Sanitarium, grew to cover a 36-acre site in the same location, and in 1924, a central hall was constructed. During the following five years, a laboratory, an office building, two apartment buildings, a nurses’ house, two cottages, and director’s house were constructed. Three other non-extant buildings were also constructed during the same period. By 1940, a Billings House and Medical Director’s Residence were added to the hospital complex. The cottage system, as well as other innovations in care such as hydro-therapy and training programs for attendants, made the Milwaukee Sanitarium an influential success.
In 1954, the Milwaukee Sanitarium Foundation was established as a non-profit enterprise, and the Kradwell School, focused on psychiatric education for patients, was established on the site in 1963. The entire facility changed its name to the Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital in 1964. The facility was then affiliated with Marquette University School of Medicine and Froedtert Hospital. The Dewey Center, a new building to the east of the central Colonial Hall, was constructed as an addition shortly after. A large inpatient addition was completed in the center of the site in 1984, and three smaller cottages were demolished. There were originally fourteen units in the ‘cottage’ plan of the 1920s, of which eleven remain. The facility became affiliated with Aurora Health Care in 1993, and an addition to the Dewey Center was completed within a few years. Present plans call for another extensive renovation and addition to the complex in the coming years. |
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