As usual, we took back roads as we headed home from the ramp festival. As we were driving along, I suddenly spotted this place. I almost wrecked the car. This is the Weston State Hospital which was originally named the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. The shear size of this place stopped me in my tracks.
This place opened in 1864 and closed as recently as 1994.
It is the second largest hand-cut sandstone building in the world, the first one being the Kremlin.
Though it is one of the scariest places I have ever seen, it is also haunting in it's beauty.
It was originally supposed to house 250 patients.
It ended up holding over 2400.
It was built to be self-sufficient and had it's own farm where many of the patients worked.
Check out the outdoor areas on this building, they are all screened in.
Uncontrollable patients were kept in cages.
It was forcibly closed due to deplorable conditions and overcrowding.
The greenhouse.
Can you just imagine the stories this place holds?
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| A road next to it is called Asylum Drive, another is called Watch Tower Rd.. |
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| Construction was halted for a while due to the Civil War. |
I pulled over so The Blog Tech could take pics of this sign. Look closely at the front entrance!
That is a patient leaving the building. The Blog Tech was like.....let's get the hell out of here. I was like...I want a closer look.
If you enlarge this pic you can see a person standing inside. It is a nurse dressed in 1940's nurse attire. Apparently, they give tours. We are going back. You can google this place to learn lots more about it.
Comments
Those walls are filled with horrible stories. I wouldn't mind going that tour though :-)
I'll read more about it on the net!
have a great day!
Christer.
There are a certain kind of people, who made a habit of getting into (sneaking into) such old, decrepit buildings... And take photos, I guess.
No thank you. Not I. I'm not a big-on-ghosts person, but I'd still be afraid I might bring some very troubled soul, back home with me.
Scaredy-cat Tessa
Doesn't that place's entrance look like an intrance to a black hole of no return? Those place were nothing but torture chanmber what what I've read of them. The game unnerved me and I gave it up and then the computers changed and it would no longer work in the newer ones.
What an adventure you were on.
Oh the stories it could tell....not sure I would want to hear them though!
I bet you couldn't even light a sage stick in this joint. All the spirit would just smudge it out ;],lol.