Appalachian History

Today Dr. William Henry Burritt is remembered in Huntsville, AL as the man who left his mountaintop estate to the city in 1955, and in doing so, provided that city’s first public museum: the fourteen-room, “X” shaped, Burritt Museum and Historic Park on Round Top Mountain. One of Dr. Burritt’s earliest charitable donations sounds like [...]

Weston Hospital in Lewis County, WV, officially named the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane upon completion of the facility shown here in 1880, was typical of the many that were established throughout the country. Its design reflected the Kirkbride plan in action. Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride’s theory centered on what he referred to as [...]