Category Archives: 1900-1929

Who was deported from Alaska and who was at Morningside Hospital?

By Ellen | April 20, 2009

The preliminary examination of the records shows that Alaskans from all over the state – from Nome to Ketchikan – were sent to the Morningside. Dr Henry Waldo Coe, medical director and owner of Sanitarium Co which operated Morningside Hospital, provided the federal government with a report on the census of the hospital in March 1916. The report tallied the number of admissions, discharges, elopements, deaths and deportations from the Insane District of Alaska from 1904 to 1916. A total of 576 patients were admitted during that time, with 33.5% or 192 still in the hospital, 21% died while there, 37.7% were discharged , 7.2% eloped, and .3% or two persons were deported from the US. This is one of the most complete demographic pictures we have found of Morningside patients. Read More »

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Early Patients: Sam Bonnifield

By Ellen | April 13, 2009

Sam Bonnifield was a professional gambler and saloon owner who followed the gold from Dawson City to Fairbanks in the early 1900’s. Sam and his brother founded the First National Bank in Fairbanks, which shipped out $3 million in gold dust before the depression hit. Bonnifield, who was known as “Square Sam” because he treated people fairly, took the near failure of his bank very hard. He was despondent and suffered a “nervous breakdown”, kneeling in the snow in front of his bank crying, ”O God! Please show me the way out.”

In August 1910, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner noted that Sam Bonnifield arrived in town after walking the Valdez Trail. He spent a year recovering on the family farm in Kansas. The newspaper celebrated his return by saying, “No man ever lived in the North who has more real friends than has Sam Bonnifield, and the entire community will be glad to have him here once again.”

In October 1911, the Alaska Citizen ran the headline “Sam Bonnifield is Insane Once More.” Read More »

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