Western State Hospital Boundary Increase III

Southwest of the main Western State Hospital grounds in Staunton, a long concrete-and-frame dairy barn and a small concrete block milk house survive from the hospital's farming operation. The barn, built between 1927 and 1930 and renovated in 1952, is about 260 feet long with 25 bays, a standing-seam metal gambrel roof, exposed rafter ends and cupolas topped with cow weathervanes. The milk house dates from 1946. A historic road, also included, connects them to the hospital's residential area. The group was added to the existing district because it is the only remaining set of buildings tied to the hospital's subsistence farming, which supplied up to 66,000 gallons of milk a year and employed nearly half of the patients as therapy. The barn had a capacity of 104 cows. Both buildings have been used for storage since the state corrections department took over the site in 1981. Their local architectural significance covers 1930 to 1952.