Searching for the St. Croix Leper Hospital via Geophysical Survey

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The St. Croix Leper Hospital operated from 1888 through 1954. During this time, St Croix was occupied by Danish and United States governments, so understanding the global influence on the site is important. Most of the buildings occupied and used by the residents are no longer extant as all but four buildings and two cisterns were removed in the 1960s for a housing complex. Turning to historical maps and images, we found 15 leper hospital buildings depicted on a 1923 map of St Croix and 24 buildings shown on a 1954 aerial photograph. This poster presents the results of a ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey to assess whether subsurface remains of these buildings exist. GPR data from 15 grid locations across the site suggest that some remains of those buildings are buried and future investigations may be able to provide insight into residential patterns at the hospital.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2022 SHA Poster Submissions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology