Green Avenue (near Central Wisconsin Center) –
771 buried here
Everyone buried here was a patient at
Mendota Mental
Health Institute. Burials were from 1860 to 1947, although one patient was laid to rest
in 1964.
It was a common practice in the late 1800s and early 1900s to bury patients on the grounds if they
died in a mental hospital. Most patients were buried without tombstones to protect their
confidentiality. Mendota maintains a private record of each person buried at the site.
Originally burials were next to the first hospital building, then called the “Insane Hospital”,
that opened in 1860. In 1871 construction forced 87 bodies to be exhumed and the cemetery to be
moved to the current site.
