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Inside Old Parkland

Photo Essay
The original Parkland Hospital on the corner of Maple and Oaklawn once housed a mental ward, a morgue, quarantined tuberculosis and chronic illness patients, and served as overflow jail space for Dallas County’s corrections department before it was finally shuttered in 1975.

By Sarah Jane Semrad

Photo: Sarah Jane Semrad

The original Parkland Hospital on the corner of Maple and Oaklawn once housed a mental ward, a morgue, quarantined tuberculosis and chronic illness patients, and served as overflow jail space for Dallas County’s corrections department before it was finally shuttered in 1975. Once vacant, the building took on new life as an illicit shelter for vagabonds and the homeless. Before Crow Holdings purchased the building for renovation in 2006, photographer Sarah Jane Semrad took a medium format camera and a tripod into the dark space and captured the echos of the lives who were treated or incarcerated within the red-brick walls.

6 Comments »

  1. Wonderful shots Sarah Jane. I love the drawer photo in particular.

    I don’t know when it closed but the building housed Woodlawn, a minimum security jail in the early 80’s. I visited prisoners there.

    //bill holston
    15 June 2009 at 9:51 am

  2. Fascinating! Crow’s crew has actually done a very good job w/rennovation, though secretly, I prefer the spooky,untouched look.
    The red brick buildings there today were actually built in 1913, and were the second set of hospital buildings built on that spot…called
    “Parkland” b/c the land, purchased from the city, was originally meant to be a park. Brochures from the time extolled the high, open country atmosphere and fresh breezes as the perfect setting for the recovering TB patient.

    You can sort of imagine it if you’ve ever stood by the waterfall sign and checked the view.

    //Karen Gempel
    15 June 2009 at 10:02 am

  3. I attribute part of my awakening as an artist to my best friend, Terry, whom I met at Garland’s Austin Junior High in the mid 60s. It was just before he began a downward spiral that would last the next, and last, six years of his life. From time to time I’d visit him, at Woodlawn or at Parkland’s psych ward just up the road, where his drug-enhanced schizophrenia earned him room and board.

    The last time I saw Terry alive he’d graduated to Terrell State Hospital but skipped out one day to track me down in Oklahoma City. Next thing I heard, he’d set himself on fire, like a Buddhist monk protesting the war going on inside his own brain.

    Having been away from Dallas for more than twenty years, I’d been unable to fit the jigsaw-puzzle piece I call Woodlawn into my current picture of Oaklawn. As painful as those memories remain, and as relatively inconsequential as the street address might seem, it’s good to finally find a place for it all in reality, instead of out there in the fog of a bad dream.

    //James Michael Starr
    15 June 2009 at 11:46 am

  4. Those are great photos. I’ve always wanted to explore in there. Curious old spot. Glad they’re going to renovate it.

    //Carlitos
    15 June 2009 at 6:20 pm

  5. Marvelous set of photos. Not being from Dallas, these sorts of “historical” photo essays help me to build a sense of place, topos memori…

    //rezeski
    16 June 2009 at 8:39 pm

  6. I have gone through hundreds of pictures for Old Parkland - our firm is doing an oral history for Crow Holdings, highlighting her rich history - I just had to say your pictures capture are wondering - the light is PERFECT. The feel you’ve captured is remarkable.

    thank you

    //kate
    23 July 2009 at 6:41 am

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