The "Autumn State Hospital" was established on the grounds of the former State Reform School for Boys in 1884. The buildings that already stood on campus would see numerous additions to expand for use as a psychiatric hospital. Doors opened for patients in December of 1886 and was marked as the first hospital in New England to employ a homeopathic approach to the treatment of mental disabilities.

In the early 1900's, Solomon Carter Fuller was employed and practicing at the hospital. Fuller was an African American psychiatrist who focused his career in Alzheimer's. It was here where the preformed groundbreaking research that would show the physical changes that occurred in the brains of patients suffering from Alzheimers Disease. The hospital was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The hospital was shut down in 2010 due to the construction of a new state hospital facility nearby. The campus was sold from the state to the town and opened as a walking and recreation park. Recently another change of ownership occurred with the town selling the land to a developer. Public access has been closed off and the campus is awaiting its inevitable demolition to make way for ugly housing.