Sonoma Developmental Center facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Sonoma Developmental Center--Main Building
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 Location in California
Location in the United States
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| Location | 15000 Arnold Drive Eldridge, California |
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| Area | 1,670 acres (7 km2) |
| NRHP reference No. | 00001180 |
| Added to NRHP | October 6, 2000 |
The Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) was a large state school in California, United States for people with developmental disabilities, and is located in Eldridge in Sonoma County. Former names for this hospital include California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble Minded Children (1883); Sonoma State Home (1909); Sonoma State Hospital (1953); and Sonoma Developmental Center starting in 1986. The center closed on 31 December 2018.
Contents
History
Founding
It opened at its current location on November 24, 1891, though it had existed at previous locations in White Sulphur Springs near Vallejo starting in 1883; a location in Fasking Park in Alameda County; and another location in Santa Clara (near the intersection of Market and Washington Street) from 1885 to 1891.
Dozens died at this hospital in an outbreak of Spanish influenza in 1918.
Human experimentation
Often overlooked, Sonoma conducted dangerous tests and trials on patients into the 1960s. Testing in mental institution alleviated the compensation and consent required for researches. Such treatments, including radiation dosing experiments, resulted in countless injuries and deaths that are still being investigated.
A story in the October, 1952 issue of the Sonoma Index-Tribune, described the test of a live polio vaccine on "61 boys and girls (who) took the new vaccine in a glass of chocolate milk… regarding it merely as an extra 'treat'." The Index-Tribune article clarifies that parents of the young subjects had given their permission for the tests.
Closure and reuse plan
In 2015, the state announced the closure of SDC by the end of 2018. This meant the relocation of more than 300 residents, and the development of a reuse plan for the property.
The October 2017, the Nuns Fire had a dramatic impact on SDC, necessitating a mandatory evacuation of hundreds of residents and staff, and burning the eastern third of the property along California State Route 12. The main area of SDC withstood the fires, and the remaining residents all moved back in; however, the fire forced a major interruption of the State's site assessment process.
In May 2017, the State hired Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) to provide architectural and engineering services to prepare "a comprehensive existing conditions study and an opportunities and constraints summary and analysis for SDC."
The State incorporated a strong community engagement plan as part of the WRT contract. In order to ensure that the site assessment was based on the best available data—and that the analysis is designed to answer the most pressing concerns of the local community—WRT created an SDC Community Advisory Committee (CAC). This committee is composed of a broad range of local stakeholders, and its purpose is "to provide comments to the WRT team on the Site Assessment findings and to offer input regarding the opportunities and constraints for the SDC site."
The first meeting of the CAC was September 28, 2017. Ten days later, the fires raged through the North Bay, and WRT's goal of producing its reports and holding a series of community meetings by the end of 2017 was lost in the tumult of wildlife disaster response. After a three-month delay, CAC scheduled a meeting with WRT on March 22, 2018. After the cancelled September CAC meeting, WRT had planned to finish the site assessment, presenting the findings one more time to the CAC, and then hold a public meeting in Sonoma where the whole community would be briefed on this critical information.
The center officially closed on 31 December 2018.
In December 2022, a memorial was dedicated to those who have lived and died at Sonoma. There are over 1,500 people buried in a field on site from 1892 to 1939. There are no headstones or grave markers.
Research resources
The State Archive in Sacramento has extensive holdings on the early history of the Home, including patient registers, photographs, maps, and records.
Fictional works
- The Center provided the setting for Jack London's short story Told in the Drooling Ward (1914).
- Downloadable version of Jack London's short story Told in the Drooling Ward (1914) with an introduction by Ed Davis
- The book In All Things: A Return to the Drooling Ward is a fictionalized account based on the author's experiences while training as a psychiatric technician at the former hospital.
See also
- Lake Suttonfield
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Sonoma County, California
- Sonoma County Historic Landmarks and Districts
- Unethical human experimentation in the United States
