A Woman’s Solitary Spiral at the Winsor Hotel
After days of isolation, heavy drinking, and cigarette smoking, a guest from Port Angeles was found raving in her room.
Dolly Hamilton, a young woman who has been stopping at the Winsor hotel for about a week, was last night taken to police headquarters by Officer Lantscher and locked up as insane. She was raving wildly and thought her path was beset by robbers and strewn with mangled policemen. She was given medical treatment and will have a hearing today probably in the probate court. The hotel people say that she has been drinking deeply, smoking unlimited cigarettes and eating but little food for a week, which may explain her condition. They say she came from Port Angeles.
“She was raving wildly and thought her path was beset by robbers and strewn with mangled policemen.”
Historical reporting on mental health crises frequently framed them as failures of personal morality or 'vices,' such as tobacco and alcohol use. Today, this incident serves as a reminder of the historical criminalization of mental health, where the police served as the primary responders to what we would now classify as a medical emergency.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.