The original building of the Independence, Iowa, State Hospital for the Insane, a Kirkbride, opened May 1, 1873. However, finishing touches on the south end were not complete until a decade later, and then with considerable adaptation in the engineering. Albro Dewitt Guernsey, the resident engineer and story teller, told of that day in 1883 when they were finishing arches in the south wall with forms being in place, only to learn that they were out of money and also brick and what to do was the issue. A creative member of the crew came up with a gem. His solution was to mix a batch of sawdust and plaster and pour it into the arch, this to the chagrin of Guernsey, who said it would never work. He was proven wrong, of course, and was still repeating the story in the 1920s. Guernsey was a friend of Buffalo Bill Cody, and whenever the latter was in the middle west, would go and see him, and that pair surely told stories.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 01:05:34 +0000
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