Manteno State Hospital Manteno, Illinois

n 1927, Illinois State Governor Len Small, the “Good Roads
Governor”, was building roads, expanding universities, accepting bribes from “the syndicate” (as some sources suggest) and overseeing plans for the construction of a new state hospital in Manteno, Illinois.

Although the ground wasn’t broken until 1928, the plans were well underway
for an institution that was to provide relief from the over crowed situations at several other Illinois state hospitals.

In 1930 the Manteno State Hospital received its first 100 patients and by the end of 1985, the hospital was closed and remaining patients were sent elsewhere. For over 50 years Manteno State Hospital was an institution that cared for the mentally and
physically ill, the developmentally disabled and veterans of various wars. With a peak population of over 8,000 patients, Manteno State Hospital was a self contained city with little reliability on other municipal resources.

Yet, to this day, very little is known about Manteno State Hospital,who worked there, what happened there, when it was opened, why it was closed, and how it operated. It has become a faded memory of the past, a subject of much curiosity and the setting
of many a folklore and urban legend.