Photo's taken in 2004 Music : Stay with me / Mike Turcotte ( Copyright MTM 2024 )
Taken from Facebook -------------------------------------------
Wilmington Submitted by member Andy Graham. Mr. Graham inquired about a since demolished group of buildings on Route 62 near Benevento’s recently replaced with condominiums. While primarily in the town of North Reading, it was a close by and well known landmark for generations of Wilmington’s residents. In fact, a small sliver of the former property was in Wilmington. In its final form (beginning in 1962) the facility was known as the the John T. Berry Rehabilitation Center, a state mental health facility. However, the facility had its beginnings as a state tuberculosis hospital. Opened in 1909 as Martin’s Brook Sanatorium, it later became known as the North Reading Sanatorium or just the State Sanatorium. The near 90 acre parcel contained dozens of buildings (living quarters, medical buildings, a church, recreational facilities, a school, administrative office space, etc.) In the 1920s it became a children only tubercular ward. It closed as a sanatorium in 1962 and became the John T. Berry Rehabilitation Center. In 1995 the facility closed for good but for nearly twenty years the buildings remained, falling into rot and ruin. In 2006 a large portion of the property was sold off for private residential development. In 2015 Governor Charlie Baker signed an order transferring 36 acres of the parcel to the town of North Reading.
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