I called Shapiro and spoke with a man I'd been referred to. He was a friend of a friend of mine, as it turned out, and has worked there 29 years. Still, I didn't get much information from him. He said the campus was built in 1886 and was first known as the Eastern Illinois Hospital for the Insane. It later became known as the Kankakee State Hospital, the Kankakee Developmental Center, and finally the Samuel H. Shapiro Developmental Center. He did not know exactly when one name gave in to the next. As for the cemetery, east of KCC, he said it's still maintained by Shapiro, but only a couple times a year. He said he believed tractors would be out there within a couple weeks to mow. As for finding ancestors, he didn't know what the specific steps are. Laws protecting the mentally ill are strict and hard to cut through, even for genealogists. As a first step in identifying ancestors, he recommended writing to the administrator of Shapiro. He estimated that it would take a court order and months of waiting to get records, if they're even available. When I asked him if there's any written history on the facility for people to read, he said he wasn't aware of any. I understand there is some history on the facility at the Bourbonnais library. This may be all someone new to this area will ever know about the place! Chuck Wilcox