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Allentown State Hospital
Allentown State Hospital
Pennsylvania State Hospitals
	Allentown State Hospital in October 2007
Geography
Location	1600 Hanover Ave., Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Coordinates	40°36′54″N 75°25′48″W / 40.615°N 75.430°W
Organisation
Care system	Public
Type	Mental Health
Services
Beds	210
History
Opened	Oct. 3, 1912
Closed	Dec. 17, 2010
Links
Website	Allentown State Hospital

Allentown State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located at 1600 Hanover Avenue in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It served Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Monroe, Pike, and occasionally eastern Schuylkill counties in the Lehigh Valley and Northestern regions of Pennsylvania.

The hospital, which was one of seven psychiatric hospitals in Pennsylvania, was mostly demolished on December 28, 2020, though two buildings of the hospital remain. Those buildings currently house the nerve center for Community Services for Children, an organization responsible for the local Head Start and Early Head Start programs to support children throughout Pennsylvania.

History

20th century

Planning for the development of Allentown State Hospital began in 1901. Eleven years later, on October 3, 1912, it opened. The hospital cost $1,931,270 to build. The hospital's patient population peaked in 1950 with 2,012 patients.^{[citation needed]}

In November 1998, Allentown State Hospital was the first psychiatric hospital in the United States to be completely seclusion-free. Due in part to community mental health efforts, the hospital's occupancy later fell to as low as 175 patients.^{[citation needed]}

21st century

Due to the sharp decline in the need for psychiatric hospitals, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare closed the hospital. Some residents were transferred to Wernersville State Hospital in Berks County. Others were placed in residential care settings in the community. The hospital closed on December 17, 2010.^{[citation needed]}

The Pennsylvania Department of General Services placed bids to demolish all the buildings on the property, including the historic main building, by the end of 2019. The property was purchased for the purpose of demolition by TCA Properties in Doylestown.^{[citation needed]}