FMC Lexington, in Lexington, Kentucky, has one of the more unusual histories in the federal system. The site opened on May 15, 1935, not as a prison but as the U.S. Narcotic Farm, later renamed the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital — the first facility of its kind in the country, created to treat people with drug addiction through what were then experimental medical approaches, including patients who came voluntarily. During World War II it also served briefly as an internment site for German, Japanese, and Italian nationals and Americans. In 1967 it was renamed again, becoming a National Institute of Mental Health research center, before a series of controversies over its research practices led to its closure and transfer to the Bureau of Prisons in 1974. Even under BOP control, it kept a psychiatric hospital designation until 1998, when that mental health mission moved to a newer facility in Massachusetts. Today it operates as a Federal Medical Center, serving as a referral hospital for inmates from across the federal system with significant medical or mental health needs — a very different role from the general-population prisons most people picture.