The Department was established through the Mental Health Law of 1953, although publicly supported services to Oklahomans with mental illness date back to before statehood: the first facility in Oklahoma for the treatment of individuals with mental illness was established by the Cherokee Nation, called the Cherokee Home for the Insane, Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, it was built outside the city of Tahlequah in 1873. Non-Indians with mental illness were sent out of state for treatment to the Oak Lawn Retreat in Jacksonville, Illinois, until a private company, the Oklahoma Sanitarium Company, located in Norman, Oklahoma, began treating the mentally ill on June 15, 1895. The Department continues to operate a facility at this location today, now called Griffin Memorial Hospital.