The Bryce Hospital Museum in Tuscaloosa is now open to the public and highlights the history of mental health and civil rights in Alabama.

Through a collaboration between the Alabama Department of Mental Health and the University of Alabama, the museum features multiple exhibits including artifacts from throughout Bryce Hospital’s history. It is part of a $121 million project that includes a university welcome center, a museum of mental health, a museum of the university’s history, event space and classrooms for performing arts students.

The museum is a part of the Catherine and Pettus Randall Welcome Center on the University of Alabama’s campus.

“With this building, we just hope that people feel a real connection and understand that mental health is no different than physical health. We all need to take care of our mental health. And we need to honor those who have mental health issues and are in recovery so they can live a full life,” Kimberly Boswell, the Alabama Department of Mental Health commissioner, said.

Bryce Hospital, built in 1850, opened its doors in 1861 with a Civil War veteran as the first patient.

It was reportedly the first building in Tuscaloosa with gas lighting and central heat; it aimed to provide humane treatment for people with misunderstood conditions and mental illnesses. For a while, it even hosted a newspaper written by patients.

It served as an insane asylum and treatment facility for more than a 150 years, with the final patients leaving the building in 2014.

By that point, most of the building was abandoned and crumbling.

Today, the white building rises high above its red brick neighbors with spiraling columns and a towering dome.

Upon walking into the welcome center, the original staircase that patients once walked up to receive treatment guides those who enter into exhibits.

Once a visitor reaches the top of the steps, they are greeted by the white bust of former Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner John Houston, who the museum is dedicated to.

Houston’s family and former colleagues fought back tears as they celebrated the opening by sharing memories of Houston and his fight for better support for people with mental illnesses.

The exhibits take all those who are curious on a journey through the controversial history of Alabama’s mental health landscape. Throughout history, people with mental illnesses were often treated as second class citizens, locked away or mistreated.

Steve Davis, historian for the Alabama Department of Mental Health, said the museum serves as a testament to the importance of remembering the history of marginalized people who had to fight to be treated equally.

“Throughout history, anybody that’s been marginalized, has experienced those who try to take away their history…or it’s never written. And so everything we’ve tried to do throughout this whole historic movement is to restore that history,” Davis said.

As visitors walk through the museum, they see how mental health legislation and treatment centers evolved.

Visitors lean over artifacts, trying to get a closer look at Bryce Hospital’s original spires, stained glass mirror and an original nurse’s uniform. One glass case even features a diorama of the Bryce campus created by a former patient.

In another exhibit are the original iron grave markers from the hospital’s cemetery. Also in the display are plastic, purple flowers left on the grave of a former patient by a family member, a reminder for those who visit to never forget the importance of mental health.

“People are people. And it doesn’t matter if you have a mental health issue. It doesn’t matter if you have an intellectual disability. People are people and we need to show respect and dignity to everyone. That’s what this building is. It honors the history and the respect and dignity of the people who walk through these doors, and that’s what’s so exciting about it,” Boswell said.