It was situated on the grounds of the former Mount Vernon Arsenal, a former United States Army munitions depot dating back to 1828.

[2] In 1900, the Alabama Legislature established a mental health facility on the former site of the Mount Vernon Arsenal to relieve overcrowding at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa.

[4][5] Initially the disease was a mystery, but it was later identified as one of the first major outbreaks of pellagra in the United States.

In 2010 Searcy Hospital had approximately 400 extended-care beds and a 124-bed intermediate care unit for patients with severe mental illness.

It also served the female forensic in-patient psychiatric center for the southern one-third of Alabama.