Winnebago Mental Health Institute

Winnebago Mental Health Institute
Institute in 2010
Shown in Wisconsin
Geography
Location	Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States
Coordinates	44°04′30″N 88°31′05″W / 44.075°N 88.518°W / 44.075; -88.518Coordinates: 44°04′30″N 88°31′05″W / 44.075°N 88.518°W / 44.075; -88.518
Organisation
Funding	Wisconsin Department of Health Services
Hospital type	Specialist
Patron	None
Services
Emergency department	No
Speciality	Psychiatric hospital
History
Founded	1873
Links
Website	https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/winnebago/index.htm

Winnebago Mental Health Institute (WMHI), formerly the Winnebago State Hospital, is a psychiatric hospital near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, United States located in the unincorporated community of Winnebago, Wisconsin.

The Winnebago State Hospital was one of several 19th-century psychiatric hospitals in the United States built on the Kirkbride Plan, a style of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-19th century. The site of the hospital was the object of a competition between Green Bay and Oshkosh in 1870. The voters in the area approved an expenditure of $16,700 to begin construction.

Construction first began for the institute in 1871. It opened in 1873 as the Northern State Hospital for the Insane, with the first patient admitted on April 21, 1873. The original building (now gone) was completed on November 11, 1875, with a capacity of 500 beds. Capacity was said to be 650, by 1891. The name was later changed to Winnebago State Hospital c.1930s then to Winnebago Mental Health Institute c.1970s.

John Flammang Schrank, the attempted assassin of Theodore Roosevelt, was committed to the Northern Hospital for the Insane at Winnebago in November 1912. He later died at Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, Wisconsin.

By 1932, the facility housed 864 patients with 164 staff members and an official capacity of 727.

Scandal erupted after a patient died at Winnebago in January 1934. The death of Oscar Schrader kicked off a Legislative inquiry that eventually spread to several state mental health facilities from February to July 1934. It resulted in around 30 dismissals of staff and officials from Mendota, Winnebago and Waupun. The asylum guard was acquitted by an Oshkosh jury on two manslaughter counts, but he was discharged for his actions and the Legislative committee sought to compensate the widow for his death.