Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents
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The Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents, formerly known as DeJarnette Center, is a children's mental hospital in Staunton, Virginia.
[edit] History
Founded in 1932 as a pay unit of the Western State Hospital, the DeJarnette Center (formally the DeJarnette State Sanitorium) was named after Joseph DeJarnette, a prominent Virginia psychiatrist and strong supporter of eugenics, particularly the compulsory sterilization of the mentally ill. The DeJarnette Center separated from the Western State Hospital in 1946 to become an independent asylum.
The old asylum was shut down and abandoned by the state in 1996, when the hospital moved to to the Western State Hospital's old location in Staunton. In 2004, plans were made to demolish the old complex and replace it with a shopping mall and parking lot. However, plans for the shopping mall project fell through when not enough tenants were secured for the mall. As of 2007, the old DeJarnette Center still stands, though in a considerable state of disrepair.
