Rosewood Center

The Rosewood Center was an institution for people with developmental disabilities located on Rosewood Lane in Owings Mills, Maryland.It was established in 1888 as the Asylum and Training School for the Feeble-Minded. From 1912 to 1961, it was known as the Rosewood State Training School. In 1961, the facility was renamed as the Rosewood State Hospital. After the state departments of health and mental hygiene merged in 1969, the facility was renamed the Rosewood Center. On January 15, 2008, the state of Maryland announced that Rosewood would be closed in the near future, and the center began the process of transferring residents to other facilities. It finally closed on June 30, 2009.HistoryIn March 1888, The Maryland Legislature approved “An Act to establish and incorporate an Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded of the State of Maryland” which empowered a seventeen-member Board of Visitors to direct the selection of a site for a school which "shall receive, care for and educate all idiotic, imbecile and feeble-minded persons". Despite this sweeping command, only ten thousand dollars was appropriated for the land and buildings, with a five thousand dollar annual appropriation thereafter. The asylum was to be free of charge for all indigent children between seven and seventeen years of age, charging two hundred and fifty dollars for all other children.Because of the inadequate housing and appropriation and the number of eligible applicants the Board of Visitors had to adopt a restrictive admissions policy. Set forth by the Board in 1899, the admission policy confined itself to "those who are susceptible of a certain degree of training with the view to their being developed into a condition of utility and self-support, in other words it shall be a training school and not custodial.