[detail] Right of Way and Track Map, Houston & Texas Central R.R. operated by the T. and N.O.R.R., Fort Worth Branch, 1918, Map #64783, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Things that Make You Go Hmmm: Texas’s Narcotic Farm

Sometimes looking for a feature on a map can lead a researcher in a completely different direction, especially when you come across something that appears slightly unusual. At first glance, map #64783 is just another railroad alignment map, one of many in the collection of the General Land Office. Upon closer inspection, however, a peculiar feature stands out: east of Brambleton in Tarrant County, a strange notation appears — Narcotic Farm. Surely no one in the business of narcotics would brazenly advertise such an illegal act on a public map, so what is the story?

The notation for a Narcotic Farm is an eye-catching oddity on a railroad map.

The story, as it turns out, is complicated. Opiates, such as morphine and heroin, were widely used in medicines at the turn of the twentieth century and were legal in the U.S. until 1914. Like the similar alcohol “prohibition” in the U.S. starting in 1920 (illegal until 1933), opiate use then suddenly became illegal and went underground.[1]

“Federal Narcotic Farm to be Built Near Fort Worth,” The Victoria Advocate, August 3, 1936, accessed May 31, 2017.

The Narcotic Farm stems from an act of the 70th Congress of the United States that was approved on January 19, 1929. The bill authorized “the establishment of two institutions for the confinement and treatment of persons addicted to the use of habit-forming narcotic drugs who have committed offenses against the United States and of addicts who voluntarily submit themselves for treatment.”[2] The Narcotic Farm, therefore, was not a production site for illicit substances, but rather a treatment facility for those who had suffered because of their addiction.

The first of these two institutions opened in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1935, and was intended to serve those who were incarcerated in prisons located east of the Mississippi River. When a site was needed for the second institution, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce successfully lobbied to have the facility located near their town.

A 1,400-acre site about six and a half miles south of Fort Worth was selected to build the sister facility to the one in Lexington, which would serve up to 1,200 male patients incarcerated west of the Mississippi River with a staff of 350 people. Construction was estimated to cost $4 million, with a groundbreaking on September 1, 1936.[3] Under the direction of the Public Health Service, the federal agency tasked by Congress to run the two facilities, the Fort Worth farm became known as the United States Public Health Service Hospital (USPHSH). Upon completion of the campus in 1939, it constituted the largest hospital of its kind in the United States, consisting of 51 buildings.[4]

[left] Detail showing the original land grants in the location where the Narcotic Farm was eventually placed. Eltea Armstrong, Tarrant County, Austin: Texas General Land Office, 2 September 1942, Map #73298, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX. [right] A current aerial GIS rendering of the site of the Narcotic Farm, with original Texas land grants overlaid.

Once it became operational, the USPHSH was a working farm where patients, as part of their therapy, could tend to the hogs, chickens, and dairy cows, or work the vegetable garden. The crops they grew and harvested were used to feed the staff and patients of the farm.

By the end of World War II, the demographic majority of the patients at the USPHSH had shifted from narcotics patients to Navy personnel in need of neuro-psychiatric treatment. The facility also served as a training ground for physicians, nurses, and other medical personnel. Renowned for its 80 percent success rate over a six-month period, patients seeking treatment traveled to Fort Worth from as far away as St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.[5]

A 1961 highway map also shows the Federal Narcotic Farm located on the outskirts of Fort Worth. [detail] General Highway Map. Detail of Cities and Towns in Tarrant County, Texas. City Map, Fort Worth and vicinity, Tarrant County, Texas., Austin: Texas State Highway Department, 1961, Map #5301, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Austin, TX. Reproductions of this map (GLO Map #79670) are available for sale at the GLO courtesy of TSLAC.

By 1965, with World War II nearly twenty years in the past, the patient population at the USPHSH had dropped off, and the need for a large treatment facility had diminished. Thus, the property began to transition from its heyday as a premier rehabilitation facility. The government chose to donate 158.5 acres of the property to the local school district, and the land was eventually transferred to Tarrant County Junior College, which today forms the South Campus for Tarrant County Community College.[6]

An undated circa-1950s postcard showing the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital. Image courtesy Tarrant County College.

In 1971, control of the facility was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and most of the drug treatment programs were contracted out to individual clinics. During the 1980s, it became the Federal Correctional Institute at Fort Worth and was converted into a high-security all-male prison. In 1995, the prison reverted to a medical facility specializing in treating prisoners suffering from narcotic addiction. Now, the former Narcotic Farm functions as a minimum-security facility for male inmates that offers a training program aimed at returning those inmates to the workforce.[7]

The appearance of the Narcotic Farm on an inconspicuous 1918 railroad map in the General Land Office Archives is an excellent example of a research rabbit hole opened by a curious notation on a map, and demonstrates the value of historical maps for documenting sites that no longer exist. No matter how odd it may look on the map, the Narcotic Farm provided a valuable service to those in need of treatment, and part of its history is preserved at the GLO.


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[1] http://www.history.com/topics/history-of-heroin-morphine-and-opiates

https://nyamcenterforhistory.org/2014/12/17/fear-narcotic-drugs-the-passage-of-the-harrison-act/

http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition

[2] Act Establishing Narcotic Farms and a Narcotics Division in the Public Health Service, Public Health Reports (1896–1970) Vol. 44, №21 (May 24, 1929) p. 1256; Association of Schools of Public Health, accessed May 31, 2017.

[3] “Federal Narcotic Farm to be Built Near Fort Worth,” The Victoria Advocate, August 3, 1936, accessed May 31, 2017.

[4] Nancy D. Campbell, J. P. Olsen, and Luke Walden, The Narcotic Farm — The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Publisher, 2008.

[5] Ibid.

[6]Take a peek into the past,” The Collegian, April 16, 2013, accessed May 31, 2017.

[7] Campbell.

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Articles from the Texas General Land Office Save Texas History Program

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Official Account for the Texas General Land Office | Follow Commissioner George P. Bush on Twitter at @georgepbush. www.txglo.org

Save Texas History

Articles from the Texas General Land Office Save Texas History Program

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