About

The Eastern State Hospital for the Insane was established in 1917 and opened in 1929. The school initially only admitted men, but later in the 1940s, women were also accommodated. The facility was renamed the Selinsgrove State Colony for Epileptics and, in 1954, became the Selinsgrove State School and Hospital. At its peak in 1965, the hospital housed 2,100 patients. The hospital was later renamed to Selinsgrove Center in 1977 and operates under the same name and houses around 250 patients today.

The Selinsgrove Center Memorial Park is located within the Salem Lutheran Cemetery where the hospital buried patients beginning in 1990 to the present. According to the Snyder County Historical Society, Selinsgrove Center buried their unclaimed patients in the Union Cemetery in Selinsgrove from 1920-1930.  There are also records of patients being buried in the Shreiner's Cemetery in Shamokin Dam, PA. 

Located at the back of the larger Salem Lutheran Cemetery, the Memorial Park is open to the public from dawn to dusk.