On December 13, 1910, the Board of Managers purchased land which had formerly been farmed for willow and tobacco, located at Crownsville, Maryland, for the sum of $19,000.

However, five years later, about four hundred black people were still improperly cared for in dark cells, restrained with chains, and sleeping on straw (Bowlin, Lauren).

Men were given manual labored work and women had to knit and mend clothing for staff as well as patients (Osborn, Lawrence).

"The laundry work for the patients is done by two adult males and an epileptic imbecile 10 years of age who has been taught to feed the ringer [sic] and at which he has become quite adept.

Tuberculosis was a constant threat and is mentioned in the annual reports of those early years because there was no real provision for the isolation of the patients, except in the summer months when there was a temporary open building for them.

[citation needed] Excluded from this new, active treatment program at the all-white Springfield Hospital Center were the African-American Crownsville TB patients.

According to a January 1947 report on medical care in Maryland, the normal occupancy of private and public mental hospital beds was 7,453.

Financial support hurt asylums because most were philanthropies, but costs to operate them were high (Osborn, Lawrence).

The Commissioner of Mental Hygiene said in a letter of May 22, 1945 to the State's Governor: "A few nights ago at Crownsville in the division which houses ninety criminal, insane men there was one employee on duty."

A visitor to the Division for the Feebleminded at Crownsville described his experiences in a memo of November 2, 1944 to the Commissioner of Mental Hygiene (Dr. Preston).

Following are statements from the articles relating to Crownsville: More than 1800 men, women and children are herded into its buildings meant for not more than 1,100.

Through the 1940s, the NAACP had advocated hiring African-American staff but encountered resistance from the Commissioner of Mental Hygiene.

Finally, in 1948, the new superintendent of Crownsville hired the first African-American staff member Vernon Sparks, in the Psychology Department.

In the spring of 1958, more than 600 patients had work assignments in more than 55 placements, which included "dental assistant," "receptionist," "librarian," and "hospital aide."

The Baltimore Sun of June 1953 gives a description of the "old ward for highly disturbed women": "Here are truly the creatures of the dark.

The sickest ones are kept in a room as forbidding as a dungeon, where they live in a state of odorous untidiness, many of them refusing to wear clothes.

In the pediatrics section of the Winterode Building for the feebleminded, there are 38 children including spastics, hydrocephalics and microcephalics.

In a letter to the Maryland Governor of June 23, 1952, the Chairman of the Mental Hygiene Board of Review asked: Why is less being done relatively to relieve the distressing overcrowding at Crownsville than at any of the other institutions or why this institution is allowed a patient per capita cost of $1085; an amount less than any of the other hospitals; fifty percent less than two of them...?In a letter to a Johns Hopkins Hospital social worker of December 3, 1956, Dr. Ralph Meng, the Crownsville Superintendent, expressed his concern that community agencies were not willing to accept their responsibilities in providing services to discharged Crownsville patients.

Training programs were established in psychiatry, psychology, social work, dance therapy, and pastoral counseling.

In the ten years prior to its closing, it hosted students from Israel, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and Chile.

The property was renamed the Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park (CHMP) after it was acquired by Anne Arundel County from the State of Maryland in December 2022.

A master plan effort was launched in October 2023 to "envision the future of the site as the green and healing heart of Anne Arundel County.

"[3] Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works (DPW) created a consultant team of various DC-Maryland-Virginia based businesses, including a woman-owned historical preservation firm,[4] as well as a sustainability and narrative-focused landscape architect,[5] all led by Baltimore-based design firm, Design Collective.

[6] In collaboration with the local community and residents, a set of goals and values was outlined with a vision for: A final master plan has been developed and is scheduled for release in February 2025.