Central State Hospital

Central State Hospital traces its origins to a mental health hospital for African Americans established ca. 1866 by the Freedmen's Bureau at Howard’s Grove, near Richmond. The Commonwealth of Virginia assumed control of the facility in 1870. In 1882 the City of Petersburg purchased the Mayfield plantation here for $15,000 and transferred the property to the hospital’s board of directors. The hospital relocated in 1885 on completion of the new physical plant, which continued to expand during the 20th century. The facility provided mental health care to nonwhite Virginians until it was desegregated in the mid-1960s.