Booneville Human Development Center

 place with historical importance, rehabilitation center, sanatorium, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, tuberculosis / TB hospital, Art Deco (architecture), historic district, disability organization, Colonial Revival (architecture)

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State-run residential facility for people with developmental disabilities. The complex, as well as a significant amount of acreage surrounding it (including two lakes), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a historic district; the facility was originally known as the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium, and was among the largest of its kind in the country.

Built: 1909-1956
Architects: Haralson & Mott (Fort Smith, AR); Erhart & Eichenbaum (Little Rock, AR)
Architectural style: Art Deco; Colonial Revival
Areas of significance: Architecture; Health/Medicine
Area: 896.18 acres
Also known as: Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium (historic name)
Date added to NRHP: 10/5/2006
Other designations: U.S. Historic District

The human development center complex consists of a total of 68 buildings, 61 of which historically contribute to the property's NRHP listing. These buildings range from small residential cottages, all the way up to the 140,000 square foot main Nyberg Building. The campus contains buildings from as early as 1909, as well as structures that were built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and '40s during the Great Depression. The medical buildings in the historic district make up only part of the total inventory of the site; the sanatorium was essentially a self-contained city, and as such included such facilities as a dairy, fire station, food production facilities, water treatment plants, and recreational facilities.

In its heyday of the 1940s, the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium had a capacity of 1,100 patients, and was considered to be at the forefront of tuberculosis treatment in the entire nation. It was also among the first of such facilities to be built as an entirely state-run institution. Many other comparable facilities in other states would be built after this one was established in 1909. The sanatorium ultimately operated continuously until 1973.