cassie_KY Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 On Memorial Day, Nathan and I headed up to Weston and visited the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. We had talked about it in the psych rotation of my nursing class. I searched for information about it when I got home and found out that the place, while closed, gives tours that tell the history of the place. And yes, there are ghost stories too! The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, constructed between 1858 and 1881, is the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in North America, and is purportedly the second largest in the world, next to the Kremlin. It was designed by the renowned architect Richard Andrews following the Kirkbride plan, which called for long rambling wings arranged in a staggered formation, assuring that each of the connecting structures received an abundance of therapeutic sunlight and fresh air. The original hospital, designed to house 250 souls, was open to patients in 1864 and reached its peak in the 1950's with 2,400 patients in overcrowded and generally poor conditions. Changes in the treatment of mental illness and the physical deterioration of the facility forced its closure in 1994 inflicting a devastating effect on the local economy, from which it has yet to recover. They offer tours of just the first floor and tours of all four floors of the main building. Our tour took almost two hours and we were told that we had not seen a third of the facility. The place was equal parts fascinating and creepy as all get out. The sun was shining as we started the tour. Then, it began to get cloudy, then it began to thunder until we had a full out storm on our hands!! For braver people, they offer ghost tours where people can stay the night and look for ghosts. The four floor tour costs $30, but the money they get goes back into helping restore sections of the building so that more of it can be open to tours and preserve the intact parts. It may not be the best choice for real young ones (there were a couple in our group and ended up hanging onto their mom due to being scared), but I thought it was such a neat thing to see. Our guide was a person that worked at the hospital for several years up until it closed in 1994. The building sat empty for about ten years and suffered much vandalism and decay from being abandoned. Pictures to follow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cassie_KY Posted June 3, 2009 Author Share Posted June 3, 2009 The pictures are not being my friend tonight. Here is the link: Asylum Slideshow Thanks for Looking!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOB_TOM Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Cool pics. Now when this was built, was it a specific mental disease that it treated (think Waverly Hills) or was it just a general psych ward? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cassie_KY Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 Before the tour, they gave us a two-page handout of the disorders that patients who were admitted to the hospital could have been diagnosed with. They ranged from such things as divorce, hysteria, homicide, swallowing weird objects etc. Some made me grin, but they were real problems for those people. As the hospital got bigger, more buildings were added and the main building itself was expanded. An entire building was dedicated to tuberculosis, another building was a hospital ward, the third floor was for violent patients, and the fourth floor was a halfway house type of thing where patients could come and go or get ready to be discharged from the asylum. They said that the floor space in the buildings was more than nine acres! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avatar Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Thanks for the report. As creepy as the place seems now it looks like it might have been a decent facility many years ago. Medication and other treatment have come a long way, I just feel sorry for the consumers of the mentally ill and there families it must have been hard to deal with without proper treatments (I sure they got proper care for the era) . I also admire those who could go to work day after day dealing with old treatments or remedies of consumers with mental illness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Interpreter Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 Old Terpy lived in Weston for nearly five years...and no, not in the "Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum." Thanks for the trip report and pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaterboy22101 Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 That blood on the wall is errie.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Interpreter Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 It's quite sad to see the condition of the place. Back when I lived in Weston, it was still operating as the then "Weston State Hospital," and visitors were not exactly encouraged. I often wondered what it looked like and what went on behind those massive stone walls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cassie_KY Posted June 5, 2009 Author Share Posted June 5, 2009 The blood isn't real. The place is a haunted attraction in October. And yeah, it was super creepy when I spotted it going down the first hallway! Our guide worked there for seven years. Just looking at those pictures, would you believe the place was open until 1994? Our guide, Mark, also told us that the place was so clean you could eat off the floor, had beautiful grounds, and the rehabilitation area had state of the art equipment. He said when he came back, he was shocked at how quickly the place degraded. He said it looked like it had been abandoned for fifty years, not for the ten it really was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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