Otey Yancey Warren (1860-1907)

From the Anaconda Standard, October 19, 1907.

"Dr. Warren was a giftedly accomplished gentleman, the word being used in the old and true sense. He was both scholar and elementalist. He knew much and said little. He was a diplomat without subservience, he was a courtier without guile."

    Such was the description given by the Helena Independent Record on the character of West Virginia native Otey Yancey Warren, who achieved prominence in both medicine and politics following his removal to Montana in the late 19th century. Despite length of years (he died aged 47 in 1907) Warren rose to become superintendent of the state asylum in Warm Springs, president of the Montana State Medical Association, and for two consecutive terms represented Deer Lodge County in the state house of representatives. Born in 1860 in West Virginia, Otey Yancey Warren was the son of Stuart Irving and Mary Catherine (Johnson) Warren. 

   Referred to by sources of the time under the name "O.Y. Warren", Otey Warren's formative schooling was obtained in the state of his birth and would decide upon a career in medicine at an early age. He studied at the University of West Virginia and in the early 1880s enrolled at the University of Maryland's College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore, graduating in 1885. Sometime following his graduation Warren relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he practiced medicine until 1891. In that year, Warren received the appointment as superintendent of the Montana State Asylum at Warm Springs, which, in the late 1870s, started life as a hotel and spa in Deer Lodge County.

  Owned and operated by Drs. Armistead Mitchell and Charles Mussingbrod, these two men won a government contract to use their facility to house mental patients in the Montana Territory. Beginning with thirteen patients in 1877, the original hotel and spa gradually was transformed into a longterm care facility, and through the succeeding years increased not only its total acreage (1640 acres by 1886) but also its buildings, which comprised 32 structures by 1886. Aside from the original hotel building, the facility grew to include patient housing, housing for violent patients, storage houses, a pool, and an icehouse. Until its purchase by the state in 1912,  the asylum at Warm Springs existed as a near self-sustaining institution that saw its "able-bodied and harmless" patients working not only at farming, but also in the facility's dairy, laundry, and gardens.

  Otey Yancey Warren's tenure as Warm Springs superintendent extended from 1891-1906 and during that time introduced "advanced methods of treatment, particularly of diseases induced by alcoholism, the cause of many cases of insanity at the hospital." Under Warren's stewardship the Warm Springs asylum also saw the construction of a new hospital, which, upon completion in 1900, would:

"Represent the newest ideas in hospital construction and in the treatment of diseases of the mind. Expense has not been spared to make the hospital all that is expected of it...Dr. Warren and his associates deserve much credit for the results that they have accomplished."

The hospital at Warm Springs as it looked during Warren's tenure, 1899.

  Active in the masonic fraternity following his resettlement in Montana, Warren was a member of the Valley Chapter No. 4 of Free and Accepted Masons and the Montana commandery of the Knights Templar of Butte. Although not a political office seeker, Warren's name was put forward for state representative from Deer Lodge County in 1896 and in November of that year won the election. Taking office at the start of the 1897-99 session, Warren ran for reelection in November 1898, and, following a victory, was named to the committees on Appropriations, Printing, and State Boards and Officers for the 1899-1901 term. Warren married during his term in 1901 to Katherine Kohrs (1870-1958), the daughter of German immigrant and wealthy rancher Conrad Kohrs. While their marriage may have been brief (lasting just six years), the couple had three children, Robert, Annie Frederica, and Conrad Kohrs Warren (1907-1993).

  After leaving the legislature Warren continued as superintendent of the Warm Springs asylum until stepping down in 1906. In that year he removed to Butte and was subsequently elected as president of the Montana State Medical Association for a one year term. In addition to that post, Warren was selected as the physician for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, serving in that capacity until his death. 

  Ill health marred Warren's final weeks, and a few days prior to his death was attended to by several physicians of local repute, all of whom failed to restore Warren to adequate health. Otey Yancey Warren died of a heart ailment at his Butte home on October 19, 1907, aged 47. Memorialized as one of the "best known physicians and insanity experts in the west", Warren was survived by his children and wife Katherine, who later remarried. Following her death at age 88 in 1958, Katherine Warren Bogart was interred alongside Otey Warren at the Forestvale Cemetery in Helena, Montana.

Warren's obituary from the Butte Daily Post, October 19, 1907.