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As Halloween draws closer, many of us are revisiting our favorite scary stories of haunted and creepy places in history.
One of those places was the Weston State Hospital in West Virginia, famously known as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
The asylum was officially opened in Weston, West Virginia in 1864. The land surrounding the asylum was very beautiful, and it was built near a forest for fresh air and access to nature. This was a key element of the famous Kirkbride Method, introduced at the asylum by psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride.
The Kirkbride Method involved taking patients with plenty of fresh air and open spaces, as he believed sinful and destructive behaviors occurred in city life.
Unfortunately, the Kirkbride Method wasn’t very effective for the patients at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, as other terrible methods used to “treat” them combatted any positive progress. For instance, patients were extremely isolated and could not communicate with their loved ones on the outside.
There was an extreme lack of sanitation in the asylum, which only worsened after filling it to full capacity. The asylum was only intended to house 250 patients but had a whopping 2,600 patients by 1950.
Some people admitted into the asylum were diagnosed with conditions and disorders that shouldn’t have required them to be locked up, like Down’s Syndrome, epilepsy, and diabetes. As the number of patients grew, the worse the conditions became, and the building continuously fell apart, making life even more difficult for the patients.
As patients became more frustrated, they became violent, and many were locked away and isolated for long periods, making the asylum more like a prison. The building was eventually shut down in 1994 due to its dilapidated condition.
Plans to renovate and revamp the asylum to put it back in business ultimately failed over the years.
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