Chasing the Cure: The Archaeology of Alternative Health Practices at a Tuberculosis Sanatorium

Summary

Eighty years ago, Cragmor Sanatorium in Colorado Springs, Colorado was a celebrated asylum for wealthy tuberculars and one of the premier facilities in the West. In its heyday, Cragmor housed some of the wealthiest patients in the United States. In the 1950s, the sanatorium contracted with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to treat Navajo women with tuberculosis. Once it became part of the University of Colorado system in 1965, much of the original history was subsumed under the growing campus but a few features remain. This project seeks to recover some of the ephemeral features of the sanatorium that could help us put the history in context and better understand the alternative health practices employed by both patients and doctors at the sanatorium. As part of a survey and inventory of the cultural resources of UCCS funded by the Colorado State Historic Fund, we identified and recorded several sites associated with the original functioning of the sanatorium. Using archaeological testing and historical records, we illuminate institutional practices as well as describe alternative healing strategies employed by physicians and patients at Cragmor.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20889