An Elk County, Kansas, What is It?

[W. Gray]

This is a locally tax payer funded facility in a county in Kansas. The photo is supposedly from around 1900 but may have actually been 1911. This building replaced a wood frame structure. Elk County had a facility that served the same purpose.





This is a locally tax payer funded facility in another county in Kansas. The date of the photo is from the 1930s according to one web site. The building served the same purpose as the building in the other photo.


Most all Kansas counties had one of these facilities. They were dedicated to a very narrow specific purpose. Howard County never had one but after formation on June 1, 1875, both Elk and Chautauqua did—sort of.

Elk County provided funding early on for this narrow specific purpose, but there was no centralized facility. In 1887, Elk County acquired a facility that served for over seven decades, according to the Elk County history book.

By 1912 only eleven of the 105 counties in Kansas did not have one of these facilities. None exist today, though—a totally unrelated federal law indirectly eliminated the need.

The Elk County facility was nowhere near the scale or grandeur of either of those pictured above, both of which have been torn down.

A simple five-page contract was connected to the operation of the Elk County facility; a portion of the contract is posted on several web sites.

What is pictured in the two photos? Where was the Elk County facility located?

[Bullwinkle]

         Hospitals for the mentally ill?

[Diane Amberg]

TB Sanatoriums?

[Dee Gee]

Known as a poor farm, located about three miles north of Howard on the west side of K-99.

[Wilma]

I agree with Dee Gee.

[W. Gray]

         Hospitals for the mentally ill?

TB Sanatoriums?

The buildings are neither hospitals nor Sanatoriums.

So, I would have to answer no to "Hospitals for the Mentally Ill" and to "TB Sanatoriums."

It is quite possible, though, that the two pictured facilities and the Elk County facility would have and probably did have from time-to-time contained some people who suffered from those conditions.

[W. Gray]

Known as a poor farm, located about three miles north of Howard on the west side of K-99.

I agree with Dee Gee.

The contract to run these facilities referred to "inmates." Except for the Superintendent and family, everyone in these buildings were inmates.

Would this information change your response?

[Wilma]

No, it is quite possible that at that time the residents were referred to as "inmates".

[frawin]

I Baled the Hay on this Place, it was always referred to as the Poor Farm. In Fact one of the Men or "Inmates" Rode on the Wagon and Stacked the Bales. He was as Strong as an Ox but he had some Problems, I will leave It at that. I know many of you "Oldtimers" would know him.

[Diane Amberg]

A facility for out of control alcoholics, or for people who were destitute...like a homeless shelter?  Did people willingly go there or were they put there?