Insane Asylum Kankakee Illinois State Hospital

It's been a long time since I last posted...

To kick things off - postcards of a dismal place ... no, I haven't been spending time there!

What was referred to as the insane asylum a century ago.  A popular topic on postcards then - often the sender writes on the back "I spent a night here" or "I hurried on by quickly" - and still popular among collectors today.

Opened in 1879, the hospital underwent several major changes in the course of a century or so, becoming the Samuel H Shapiro Developmental Center in recent decades to serve the developmentally disabled.