The buildings were designed by Seattle architects Saunders and Lawton, using the Spanish Colonial Revival style.

The hospital was built to serve those who were found to be insane under the superior courts of Clallam, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, San Juan, Skagit, and Snohomish Counties.

This was changed in the same year, with legislature approved for the hospital to receive patients from outside of Western State.

In response to this change, an expansion of the hospital was commissioned and granted to the architects Heath and Grove of Tacoma, WA.

[10] The hospital was closed in 1973 under the direction of governor Dan Evans due to state budget cuts.

The remaining patients were transferred to Western State Hospital, while others were released to the general public.

[12] Later in the same month, a cook named Paul Staudte was fired for refusing to serve rotten food.

[13] The hospital faced allegations of abuse of patients and overcrowding as well, leading to a state board inquiry.

[17] On July 6, 1928, John Wilson Hesford, a patient at the epileptic ward, was allegedly beaten by attendant K. K. Kyler after an altercation.

Kyler was eventually acquitted by judge George Joiner and Hesford's death was blamed on his epilepsy.

[18] In 1981, parts of a small intestine and a human head were found at a chemical dump site off of Mosquito Lake Road.

These remains allegedly came from Northern State, who used the dump site for chemicals such as formaldehyde and broken laboratory apparatuses.

[19][20] In 1983, Hawthorne Funeral Home in Mount Vernon discovered 200 food cans labeled with patient identification numbers from the hospital.

[22] In 1995, it was revealed by the United States Department of Energy that from 1954-1958 radiation experiments were conducted on patients of the hospital in conjunction with the University of Washington.