Derry Township's Torrance State Hospital marks centennial

Patients, staff and retirees from Torrance State Hospital gathered in the public mental hospital’s once grand auditorium Tuesday for a worship service to mark the beginning of the institution’s centennial year.

Torrance chaplain, the Rev. Cletus Hull, led the group of about 150 in a service of prayer and thanksgiving for the massive public mental hospital, which began offering respite to those haunted by mental illness in 1919.

A century later, many of the buildings that once dotted the college-like campus have been razed or abandoned. The auditorium that hosted the service was the only section of the vast McKinnis building that remains in use.

But Hull said the hospital continues to provide much-needed services for those battling mental illnesses in an era that has been marked by a critical shortage of inpatient treatment beds.

“Mental health struggles are not easy. But if we’re called by God, we can make it through. … Places like Torrance State Hospital are needed. They bring hope and healing to our communities,” Hull said, opening the service.

The Rev. George Hmatko, who served as chaplain at Torrance for 50 years, beginning in 1964, was among those who returned for Wednesday’s service.

“When I came here, there were 3,294 guests — you call them patients, I call them guests. …We always had a good staff. There were always good people here who cared,” Hmatko said.

The Torrance campus, located on 400 acres of rolling farmland at the foot of the Chestnut Ridge in Derry Township, is a vestige of another time, when vast public institutions housed thousands of patients committed under court order, out of sight and out of mind for years.

Such facilities began to empty, and many were razed, in the wake of a new generation of psychiatric drugs that changed treatment practices as well as laws enacted in the late 1960s that mandated community-based mental health treatment.

Today, Torrance houses fewer than 300 patients.

“It’s been a blessing. It’s more hopeful today,” Hmatko said.

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@tribweb.com or via Twitter @deberdley_trib.