Fort Worth won a big federal contract in 1931, at $4.5 million, the largest ever for the state at that time; today, few remember much about it.
The building contract was for the Fort Worth Narcotic Farm, which treated patients from 1938 to 1971, as one of two hospital prisons that promised a less punishment-focused approach for people who used drugs. The federal dollars helped Fort Worth become home to the only federally funded drug treatment program west of the Mississippi.
The farm was a place for federal prisoners who had been ensnared in new drug laws that made once over-the-counter remedies like cocaine illegal. It also housed patients voluntarily seeking treatment. The idea of the farms, established through the 1929 Narcotic Farms Act, was to blend psychiatric treatment, physical rehabilitation and vocational training and help transform American treatment policies…