If you’ve been following me for a while, you may know that my novel The Tin Box was inspired in part by a real place, the Stockton State Mental Hospital. Once the largest mental hospital in California, it’s now been converted to classroom and office space. I’ve blogged about it before.
Since I was there this evening, I thought I’d post a few new photos.
This was the main building. It once had towers but they were eventually destroyed. It’s on the National Historic Register.
The campus is actually very pretty. You can see one of the houses here. I think the director lived there.
My classroom still has bars on the window.
This interior shot in the main building gives an idea how long the hallways are.
And here’s a nice shot of the main building in light fog. My students all think the place is haunted, but I find it far less scary than downtown Stockton. It’s a melancholy place.
If you’re interested, I’ll try to catch more shots next week.
Please post more if you can. All of us need to remember that this was real. There’s an old state mental hospital in the town where my grandmother used to live and I know there were gay people there. I also know there are a lot of graves.
If you want to read about a tragedy, google Dozier School For Boys. Horrible things went on there and they’re still finding graves. I wonder how many of those boys were there because of homosexuality. The reasons for incarceration were so vague we’ll never know but it’s a good guess that there were several.