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Utah State Hospital unveils memorial to honor patients

Provo • Nearly 500 patients buried in unmarked graves after they died in what was once called the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum have been honored with a new memorial in Provo.

The names of patients who died from 1885 to 1960 at the facility that is now the Utah State Hospital are inscribed on the memorial unveiled Wednesday at the Provo City Cemetery, The Daily Herald reported .

The patient name plaques are embedded on a series of headstones placed near an obelisk recognizing the deaths.

"I always thought that these people had lost everything in their lives, including their own identity, and that we felt like if you really wanted to do this right, you had to give them their names back," said Janina Chilton, the historian at the Utah State Hospital.