Florida State Hospital

Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee was established in 1876 and until 1947 it was Florida's only state mental institution. The hospital was originally the site of the Apalachicola Arsenal built in the 1830s and named after the nearby Apalachicola River. The hospital's current Administration Building is the original Officers' Quarters of the Arsenal and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It served as a supply depot during the Seminole Wars. The first engagement of the Civil War in Florida took place here on January 6, 1861 when a militia unit from Quincy overcame the Union soldiers at the Arsenal.

Prison
In 1868, Florida Governor Harrison Reed made the arsenal property at Chattahoochee into Florida's first penitentiary. It was also used to muster Confederate troops. Florida's first recorded inmate was Calvin Williams, incarcerated at Chattahoochee in November 1868 for the crime of larceny and sentenced to one year. By 1869 there were 42 inmates and 14 guards. In 1871, the prison was put under civilian jurisdiction. Malachi Martin was appointed as warden, gaining a  reputation  for cruelty and corruption. He used prison labor for his personal benefit to build houses and  tend his personal vineyards, amassing a huge fortune. The book, The American Siberia, was written in 1891, portraying the Chattahoochee prison as a place of relentless barbarity. The prisoners were relocated in 1876 to a prison at Raiford and the prison became a state hospital.

Notoriety
The hospital has been the focus of numerous investigations over the years for allegations of mistreatment of patients.

The hospital was involved in a famous United States Supreme Court decision in 1975, O'Connor v. Donaldson, when a patient at the hospital, Kenneth Donaldson, sued the hospital and staff for confining him for fifteen years against his will. The decision, as interpreted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), means that it is unconstitutional to commit for treatment a person who is not imminently a danger to himself or others and is capable to a minimal degree of surviving on his own. This interpretation has hampered efforts to implement changes in commitment laws through out the United States, as most states insist the person meet the "imminent danger" standard, accepting the ACLU's interpretation of the Donaldson case. The ruling gave momentum to the deinstitutionalization movement in the United States, resulting in the shutting down of many psychiatric hospitals as patients were released to the streets, and  has been blamed for causing widespread homelessness in the United States among other problems.

However, people still seem to disappear into the hospital and allegations of abuse continue. The hospital was featured in a 1989 movie, Chattahoochee, starring Gary Oldman and Dennis Hopper, in which a war hero, Chris Calhoun, is involuntarily committed to Florida State Hospital where he sees doctors at the hospital humiliating patients and experiences filth and abuse. The New York Times movie review characterizes the movie as containing "snake-pit atrocities", grime, beatings, slop, roaches and solitary confinement.

Current population
The hospital treats individuals with severe and intractable mental disorders. There are two categories of patients at the hospital. The Civil portion of the hospital houses adult and elderly individuals who have been civilly committed to the hospital. Florida State Hospital also maintains a forensic wing for the Florida Department of Corrections to care for inmates who have been adjudicated through the criminal justice system to be incompetent to proceed, or not guilty by reason of insanity. The current maximum housing capacity is 491 civil residents and 646 forensic residents. Occasionally a patient is released as competent to stand trial after many years of hospitalization.

Competency to be executed
One of the tasks of the forensic psychologists in the forensic wing is to evaluate an inmate's competency to be executed. This is a result of Ford v. Wainwright, a Florida inmate on death row who took his case to the United States Supreme Court, declaring he was not competent to be executed. The court ruled that a forensic professional must make that evaluation and, if the inmate is found incompetent, provide treatment to aid in his gaining competency so the execution can take place. Providing treatment to an individual to enable that person to become competent to be executed puts mental health professionals in an ethical dilemma.

Historic place
The former arsenal and current Administration Building of Florida State Hospital is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Building - #73000578).

Built in 1839 as the United States Army Officers Quarters, it is a two-storey masonry  brick main building,  with one and one half-story wings and front and rear porches framed with carved brackets.