More than 3,200 Western State Hospital patients are buried in Fort Steilacoom Park. The grass dips in spots where their bodies lie and, until recently, their names were lost to time, faded headstones with numbers buried beneath the dirt.
On Saturday a passionate group of volunteers was set to install the final name markers, 22 years after the project began and 147 years after the first burial.
There are men, women and children buried in the cemetery at 8714 87th Ave. SW., which is next to the dog park and H-Barn in Lakewood. One was an Alaskan mayor. Some served in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and WWI. Others never recovered from tuberculosis, scurvy, postpartum depression, syphilis, dementia or other forms of mental illness…