Images from the attic: Vancouver’s first Poor Farm

Clark County established its Poor Farm in 1873 on a portion of the former Anderson Donation Land Claim (along present-day Northeast 78th Street). Its goal was to help reintegrate its residents into society using the “up by your bootstraps” philosophy. Residents lived and worked on the farm and, after their deaths, often were buried there in unmarked graves.

Dorothea Dix, a nurse, was an American mental health pioneer. Her ideas took root in the Washington Territory and across the country. Until then, disenfranchised people depended on relatives and churches for care.

The federal government nearly got involved in 1854. But President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, vetoed the “Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane,” pitching the problem to the states. His veto kept the federal governmen