Expansion - History with the Madison State Hospital

Brief MSH history

MSH was established as the Southeastern Insane Asylum in 1910 - 10 years before Clifty Falls State Park was formed. In 1927, with the growing recognition that mental illness was a disease, the name was changed to the Madison State Hospital.

Its first two superintendents (1910-1944) used hospital resources, including patient labor, to landscape the area. In addition, the patients grew their own food on the farm with dairy, chicken, and turkey farms. The area produced more than could be used at times and the extra was sent to Indianapolis and other state hospitals.

The farm was active until the 1960s.  Considering that the unpaid labor was "indentured servitude", the Indiana legislature decided that patients would either be paid or not be required to work anymore. The judgement was that it was cheaper to purchase food and stop farming.

Most of the land transferred to the Park in 1965 was the MSH farmland with some woodland. 

Park development of MSH land

On April 3, 1974, disaster struck Jefferson County including Madison, Hanover, and the Park – an F4 tornado that was part of a so-called “super outbreak”. It destroyed the magnificent 1924 Clifty Inn and many other features of the park including the old park office, horse trails, corrals, and the riding ring.

The acquired MSH land was not developed until after the tornado. (We don't know if the tornado damage led to consideration of these additions or if they were planned beforehand and the timing just happened and- more work to find out needed.)  Development included: (1) Park Office, (2) the campgrounds, (3) Cragmont Shelter, (4) pool, and (5) the outer road. 

Also labeled are (6) Poplar Grove and (7) Oak Grove Shelters. These patches of land were squarely in the Park in the 1956 topo map, so they were not involved in the 1965 transfer.

What structures had been on the acquired land?

Structures on the MSH land (based on reviewing topographic maps and aerial photos)  are marked here on a current Google Earth image.

The white dots with black centers represent out buildings, perhaps some of the buildings pictured above. One set is in the locations of the current Park office (1) and another set at the edge of Cragmont Shelter area (2).

The area of orchards are the green lined blocks at the east edge. Only one, it seems, extended onto the current park property (3). The extent of the orchards did vary over time.

The two orange lines (4) are roads into the property at that time. Note that one was used for the Cragmont Shelter road.

The (5) thin blue lines indicate vestiges that remain and are discussed next.

What remains today?

The most visible vestige of the hospital grounds today are concrete fence posts. These posts align with the old border line (see #5 in previous image) from Poplar Grove through Trail 10 (where they are best seen) and northward past Hoffman Falls parking area. They are indicated as blue lines in the image above. There is also a cluster of posts near Cragmont Shelter probably associated with the buildings that were there.