Augusta Mental Health Institute (AMHI)

The Augusta Mental Health Institute (AMHI) was founded in 1840 as the Maine Insane Hospital. Mental health advocate Dorothea Dix consulted on the project, and believed fresh air and removal from the stresses of society were important for patient care. Tragically, 27 patients died when the hospital caught fire on December 4, 1850. The hospital’s campus expanded over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and it was known under a variety of names: the Augusta Insane Asylum, Augusta State Hospital (1913), and finally the Augusta Mental Health Institute (1973). AMHI’s aging infrastructure was closed as a medical facility in 2004, replaced by Riverview Psychiatric Center on the same campus. The AMHI campus has undergone several renovation campaigns and now houses multiple state agencies.