In 1936, Camarillo State Hospital opened at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, between the city of Camarillo and the ocean. It was a project of the Great Depression, designed to put men back to work building public institutions.

For 61 years, the hospital served people with mental illness, however that was defined at the time. At one point in the 1950s, it had more than 7,000 patients and nearly 2,000 employees, making it the largest hospital west of Chicago.

The hospital officially closed on June 30, 1997, but many buildings had been shut down long before that. Renovations soon began, and today the property is known as California State University, Channel Islands.