Before you get started, please check this post for updated information, quick tips, and information on how to obtain historical records. Are you interested in using any of our information? We are happy to accommodate requests. Common requests often include: use for blogs and/or websites, media use, as well as school and non-profit use. Secondary…
Insanity: Causes, Types, and Treatments
This is a three-part series regarding the historical causes, types, and treatments of insanity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Though focus is primarily on Kentucky institutions, these apply to other institutions throughout the United States. You can visit this page to read Kentucky’s historical lunacy laws. You can also check our glossary of anachronistic…
Kentucky’s Historical Lunacy Laws
Lunacy Laws The following is a compilation of lunacy laws that were established in the Commonwealth of Kentucky up to the year 1883. Please remember to keep these laws in a historical context when reading them. The book, in its entirety, is in the public domain and can be viewed freely online. To view the…
We Now Have a Forum Available!
Greetings, everyone! We now have a community forum open. As an adjunct to our Facebook groups, the forums will provide a casual environment to post, ask questions, or make requests (such as requesting death certificates, if available). We have individual forums and subforums for every facility we have on the website. We also have forums…
Update Regarding Records Requests
2025-2026 Updates The Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) now has an online portal to submit open records requests. If you are an individual or a private or public agency (e.g. mental health, private practice, etc.) please do not provide personally identifiable information of yourself or clients directly to Kentucky Historic Institutions. We are…
Experiments on Mesmerism by Dr. Daniel Drake in 1842
In Louisville on May 7th, 1842, Dr. Daniel Drake, Professor of Pathological Anatomy and Clinical Medicine at the Medical Institute of Louisville conducted an experiment on mesmerism. So, what exactly is mesmerism? Mesmerism, or “animal magnetism,” was an 18th-century therapeutic system pioneered by German physician Franz Anton Mesmer. He theorized an invisible natural force permeated…
The Kentucky Giant
If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of or visited Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. In 1939, the Kentucky Medical Journal of the Kentucky State Medical Association noted that in the Mütter was, and still is, a skeleton called the Kentucky Giant (sometimes referred to as the American Giant). The mounted skeleton is of an acromegalic giant…
The 1910 Vital Statistics Law and its 1922 Amendment – Undertaker Edition
Rules and Regulations for Burial or Removal of Dead Bodies When a person dies in a local registrar’s district, it becomes the duty of the undertaker or person acting as such to procure a death certificate or a provisional death certificate if death occurs outside of the incorporated city or town; he secures the information…
Logan Hospital
Located in downtown Barbourville, Kentucky, Dr. Leslie Logan established the Logan Hospital to meet the medical needs of the underserved community. As the first facility of its kind in the city, Logan Hospital was completed in 1922 and was a modern building filled with modern medical equipment. In 1920, Dr. Logan operated a hospital-type clinic…
A Brief Look at the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act of 1914 and its Effects on Kentucky
The War on Drugs Sound familiar? In the United States, this will often bring back memories from multiple generations. From Nixon’s attempts at controlling drugs to Reagan and his wife Nancy amping up the War on Drugs. It might also conjure up memories of the D.A.R.E. program or Drug Abuse Resistance Education that many students…
The Checkered Life of John A. Joyce: Descent Into Madness and a Trip Down to Botany Bay
Some of you will be familiar with Col. John Alexander Joyce. An immigrant from Ireland who spent many of his formative years in Kentucky, he would go on to become a noted military officer, poet, author, and player in the 19th-century American politico. He also had run-ins with the law (e.g. the whiskey affair), received…
Kentucky’s Titular “Demon Slayer” and Escape Artist and the Death of a Salesman
In 1927, 26-year-old Alex Runion, a World War veteran and criminal with charged in three states, was charged with the murder of automobile salesman Louis Riley near Newport, Kentucky. It was alleged by local police that Runion “fired the fatal shot after Riley had been ‘taken for a ride’.” A year later in 1928, while…