Photo of a creek flowing into a spring hollow
Unpaved roads didn’t prevent pre-Civil War health enthusiasts from seeking the cure at the Big Spring, today the pond on the grounds of the MVDC. Credit: Mark Sebastian Jordan

History Knox

Mark Sebastian Jordan authors a History Knox column each Saturday morning at Knox Pages.

MOUNT VERNON — While browsing old Mount Vernon newspaper accounts of various Fourth of July fireworks accident stories, I found a pair of articles of interest on Page 4 of the July 8, 1919, edition of the Democratic Banner.

One details an Independence Day program put on at the Ohio State Sanatorium for the holiday.

The Sanatorium’s main dining hall was no doubt used for some of the Independence Day programs held in 1919. (Image courtesy of the History Knox Collection.)

Patients, nurses, and staffers all got involved in presenting a program that included athletic events on the grounds, refreshments, and a fireworks program at the end.

One wonders exactly what athletic events advanced tuberculosis patients got up to, and how the smoke from fireworks would have benefitted them, but it sounded festive nonetheless.

Today, such a program at the repurposed Mount Vernon Developmental Center would surely draw a lot of community attendees, but the article doesn’t mention any, which leads us to the second article.

The facility is now easily reachable on the outskirts of town on what is today Vernonview Drive, Ohio State Route 768. In 1919, though, it was far more remote a place.

The ladies dorm at the Sanatorium shows the rustic setting of the facility. (Image courtesy of the History Knox Collection.)

The town didn’t come out quite that far, and the road leading there was an unimproved dirt lane that lead from Coshocton Road (long before the latter became a big shopping district) to the Sanatorium and beyond.

Conditions may have been dry enough in July for dusty passage down that road, but accounts exist of the facility becoming isolated during rainy months because of the impassibility of the dirt road, which turned to mud.

The Sanatorium became isolated for weeks at a time during the winter.

The big announcement on this date, was that the state of Ohio had finally yielded to repeated requests from the Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce to provide funding for a modern road to the sanatorium, setting aside $20,000 in the state budget for the work.

What is today the Mount Vernon Developmental Center was originally the state tuberculosis sanatorium. The road to reach it from Mount Vernon was only modernized in 1919. (Image courtesy of the History Knox Collection.)

In today’s money, that is something like $365,000. So this was a major project to set a foundation and pave the road up to the facility. 

The road itself had continued on to Wooster Road (today Ohio State Route 3) for many years, but the improvement only covered the southern portion of the road. It was years later before the entire thoroughfare was to be paved.

The Sanatorium was built in 1909 on what had once been the Skeen family farm, home of the Big Spring I wrote about previously, that was a documented attraction as far back as the 1830s.

It’s easy to forget in this age of easy transportation just how hard it was to get around the area, even just a little over a century ago.