Abandoned Weyburn Mental Hospital

The Weyburn Mental Hospital, also known as Saskatchewan Hospital, Souris Valley Care Center, Souris Valley Mental Hospital was located in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. It was built in the 1920s and was a mental hospital until the 1970s. It was later used as a care home, school and daycare. It was demolished in 2009 due to the government's lack of vision.

Type: Asylum, Hospital, Care Home, School, Daycare
Built: 1920                    Opened: 1921                    ​Age: 89 years                     
​Closed: 2005 (closed as a mental hospital in 1971)
Last known status: Demolished in 2009

Built in 1920, Weyburn Mental hospital was the largest building in the commonwealth at the time. The hospital opened its doors December 29, 1921 and had room for 900 patients and 120 staff. An addition was made a few years later to make space for over 2000 patients. The Weyburn Mental Hospital was almost always over capacity. The hospital became its own community with its own power and water, farming, nurses residence and doctors cottages, barber shop, bowling alley, tailor and much more. These huge facilities were self sufficient and the patients and staff became close as they all lived nearby.

Weyburn Mental Hospital was one of the most notorious and is rich in history. This hospital was known for its research, treatments and drug therapy. Most of the stories you here about the hospital are about the LSD testing. It became known for its cutting edge treatments and psychiatric drug research. The treatments used in the hospital include insulin therapy, hydrotherapy, lobotomy and electroshock.

Today the building is completely demolished. The plan was to turn the property into a residential area with a park however it was sold off to a developer and now they are building homes on the property. The idea of a memorial may not happen which is very unfortunate.

Having this building be demolished and nothing saved except a few pallets of bricks is just another example of Saskatchewan destroying our heritage buildings. This is why we try to document as many historic buildings we can before they are demolished.

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Outside of Weyburn Mental Hospital (2008)

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Pictures from inside Weyburn Mental Hospital (2008)

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• ​Historical pictures via Virtual Museum
• Other images/scans from my personal collection