Hey Blake, was there a Louisiana mental institution named Louisiana Retreat?
HEY BLAKE,
Was there a Louisiana mental institution named Louisiana Retreat? If so, where was it?
Mary McAuliffe
DEAR MARY,
Yes, there was. Its official name was the Louisiana Retreat Asylum for the Insane. In 1853, the Sisters of Charity purchased a piece of property located in the Hurstville subdivision on the corner of Nashville Avenue and Magazine Street. The sisters, who were in charge of the various hospitals and charities in New Orleans, bought the property to build a house for their own use. It was meant to be a retreat where sisters who were ill could go to recuperate and regain their strength so they could return to their duties.
A few years later, the sisters opened a school for poor girls at the same location. Eventually that school moved to Napoleon Avenue. Then the sisters converted the facility into a mental institution with both charity and paying patients. The facility grew, and in 1876 it moved to 1038 Henry Clay Ave. Around 1930, the institution became the De Paul Sanatorium and then De Paul Hospital.
LSU Behavioral Sciences now occupies part of the De Paul campus, and Children's Hospital uses the other part.
