Agnews Developmental Center

Agnews Developmental Center is a psychiatric and medical care facility, now located in San Jose, California.

In 1885, the center, originally known as "The Great Asylum for the Insane" was established as a facility for the care of the mentally ill. The main structure, a red brick edifice, was located on land near the village of Agnew, which later became part of Santa Clara.

During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the center became infamous as the site of the Santa Clara Valley's greatest loss of life resulting from the quake. 117 patients and staff were killed and buried in mass graves on the site. The main building and some others were irreparably damaged.

Following this disaster, Agnews was reconstructed in the so-called Mediterranean Revival style, resembling a college campus of two-story buildings; it re-opened circa 1911 as Agnews State Mental Hospital. The facility was a small self-contained town, including a multitude of construction trade "shops", a farm which raised pigs and vegetable crops, a steam generating power plant for heating the buildings by steam, and even a fire department.

At the time, it boasted the largest population in the South San Francisco Bay area, and was served by its own train station which stood at the west end of Palm Drive across Lafayette Street; the station building remained until vandalism and fire precipitated its demolition in the 1990s.

In 1926, Agnews was expanded to include a second campus a couple of miles to the east in San Jose.

During its heyday the center was renowned for progressive and compassionate treatment techniques for the mentally ill.

Individuals with developmental disabilities were first admitted to a special rehabilitation program in 1965. Many programs for the mentally ill were discontinued statewide in 1972, as a result of controversial legislation promoted by then California Governor Ronald Reagan. Since then, the center has been utilized exclusively for the care and treatment of "clients" with developmental disabilities.

The original west campus was closed in 1998 as part of a plan to reduce and eventually close the center.

Re-purposing of the land
When the west campus closed, the use of the land was the subject of local controversy. In April 1997, it was announced the state would sell an 82.5 acre parcel of the campus to Sun Microsystems for use as its corporate headquarters and R&D campus. Some objected to the arranged sale of this prime public land to a profitable corporation at the peak of a local economic and real-estate boom, while others valued the presence of a prominent high-tech employer. Also at issue was the preservation of and public access to historic Agnews Developmental Center buildings. Sun arranged the restoration of four of the historic buildings (the auditorium, the clocktower, the superintendent's villa, and the administration building) and keeps some of the facilities available for public use. An outdoor exhibit open to the public displays information and photographs regarding the center and its history.

In addition to the Sun campus, the Rivermark master planned community was allocated 152 acres for a variety of residential, retail, public school, and open space uses.

The Agnews site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.