Inside the isolation cells at Weston State Hospital.
In 1858, when plans to construct a mental hospital in West Virginia began, the state called upon two experts in the treatment of the mentally ill: Francis T. Striblin of Eastern Virginia and Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. They designed a plan for a hospital that would house 250 patients and architect R. Snowden Andrews executed the concept. The proposal, based on the Kirkbride Plan, was estimated to cost $395,000.