Stained
This past weekend I had the opportunity to tour the former Athens Lunatic Asylum, now an Ohio University academic building and art museum known as “The Ridges”. The tour was led by George Eberts, who had worked at the facility for years, and currently works as a volunteer coordinator at the Appalachian Behavioral Health Facility.
Much like my trip to the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum last month, this trip evoked some sadness and a lot of thoughts about the history of mental health treatments. The building design was influenced by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, who was known for a very particular method of Asylum architecture: a large central structure with two “bat wings”, extending from each side, with the intention of fresh air, sunlight, privacy, space to move around, and comfort. The design was quite brilliant and allowed for a methodical treatment scheme, but the demise of these state mental health facilities occurred when they became over-crowded. Athens Asylum opened in 1874 with the intention to house 572 patients, but in the 1950s, the facility contained over 1800 patients.
The tour was completely outside, as opposed to my tour of the facility in Weston, WV last month, which was all inside. Although it was a hot day, I felt like I got just as much information, and George was very knowledgeable. We started out in front of the building, and George pointed out “lover’s lane”, which was the path that led from the asylum into the city.
Walter Freeman, the lobotomy “guru” had visited this asylum. You may have read about him in my previous post. Lobotomies became something that every hospital wanted to try for treatment in the 1940s. Although many lobotomies resulted in leaving patients in a vegetable-like state, there are a few patients who went on to live a successful life after the surgery. This surprised me, as I never knew there was a success rate whatsoever. In 1955 a discovery was made: a drug to treat psychosis, Thorazine, which ended lobotomies. The drug was known to clear patients’ minds and give them more ability to rationally verbalize what was in their heads. It was discovered by accident, when testing it on psychotic patients for another purpose.
One of the saddest and most talked-about stories of the asylum is “the stain”. This occurred in 1978. when a patient went missing during one of the coldest winters on record. She hadn’t shown up to dinner. The staff did a full search, criss-crossing paths on each floor looking for her. Unsuccessful in their attempt, they conducted another search the next day. As it turned out, when the cold winter began to thaw, a smell started to permeate the building. They discovered this 50something year old woman in the attic of the 4th floor, lying under the bay window, naked, with her clothing neatly folded and placed on the window sill next to her. As the story goes, they turned her over, and there was a stain, a perfect outline of her body. They had to wait until the State Highway Patrol could come to conduct an investigation, since she had died on state property. After her body was removed, there was a second stain from the place where they had rolled her over. The second stain eventually was bleached out by the sunshine, but the first stain never went away. The crew who came in to clean used a cleaning product called “Blue Ray”, which, instead of erasing the stain, made it darker. The patient was known to have a soft-spoken and somewhat raspy voice, that may have gone unheard. Or perhaps, as one of the head psychologists suggested, she never wanted to be found. His theory is that even though she was still inside the building, she was “free”. I am deliberately not mentioning her name (although many other publications do), because I believe there should be some deal of privacy in this particular case for a few reasons: it is somewhat recent; her family still lives in Athens; and it has been reported inaccurately far too often- we really don’t have her side of the story. In the photo below, her stain still exists right inside the bay window on the top floor.
Ohio University students have been breaking into the building for years, in search of the ghosts that roam its massive hallways. They have reported to have had many eerie things going on during the witching hour. George doesn’t believe in ghosts. (Hey, that’s okay by me. My intention is never to try to dispute the existence of ghosts, nor convince anyone on this blog, or anywhere for that matter. I just tell the stories of what I know, and what I have seen, heard, felt, and touched.) George has ventured off on his own midnight tours of the building, with only the moonlight through the windows lighting his way, and he has never found anything. Others who have explored the building have had different experiences. George joked that either ghosts don’t exist, or they are so lame that they are scared of him, and run and hide when he shows up.
There are three cemeteries on the property. We visited one of them and one thing stood out: there were two graves next to each other, each with a flag on top, of civil war soldiers. (These two graves are pictured below, near the middle of the photo.) What makes these two graves unique? One was a Union Soldier, Israel Johnson, and one was a Confederate, Eli Stevens. How did they end up next to each other? No one really knows for sure. The hope is that they spent their final years at the asylum playing checkers and peacefully coexisting. And we would like to believe they are resting peacefully next to each other today.
Some of the graves are not marked by names, but by numbers. But all of those numbers have a record with a corresponding name, so they are not “unknown”, as some reports may have once suggested.
These grounds, and these walls contain so many stories over the years that the asylum was in operation. At one point 3 staff members were locked into a seclusion room, while attempting to treat an elderly patient with respiratory problems. Because it was the night shift, staffing was skeletal, and no one was around to come to their aid. Some sneaky patients locked them into this tiny isolated room, and until a nurse came upstairs with a new admit, they were trapped. All hell had broken loose, and the patients were running wild.
In addition to some of the strange things going on here, there was also an alligator that once lived in the fountain in front of the building. Two boys came to visit with a shoebox containing two “lizards” they caught in Florida on a trip. One of them died, but the other one survived for quite some time in that fountain. It wintered inside, where the pipes kept it warm. Eventually it got too big to stay, and was donated to the Columbus Zoo.
Ohio University has agreed to invest 6 million dollars into renovation of the east wings. Additionally there is a ballroom in the facility, once destroyed by fire, that is being resurrected. I really appreciate that historic structures like this are being repurposed and restored. The Kirkbride style of architecture may have died out in the early 1900s, but I feel fortunate that 30something buildings of this design still stand today. The structure, the stories, the history, the folklore, and perhaps the ghosts will continue to roam these hallways for many years to come.
