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WORTH THE DRIVE: Tour the grounds of a haunted former asylum and cemetery in Athens

Credit: Southeast Ohio History Center

For a few select nights in October, guests will be able to tour one of the most haunted buildings in the state of Ohio.

The Southeast Ohio History Center, located in Athens, Ohio, will be offering historical tours of The Ridges, formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, from now and throughout the end of October.

The Athens Lunatic Asylum was a mental hospital that operated in Athens from 1874 to 1993. Throughout its years, the asylum provided services to a variety of patients that included Civil War veterans, children and violent criminals — all suffering from various mental disabilities. Many inhumane and outdated mental health treatments, like lobotomies, hydrotherapy (water therapy in the form of baths, etc.), electroshock treatments and early psychotropic drugs were in practice at the asylum during its years of operation.

Surrounding the former asylum are three cemeteries that contain the graves of 1,930 former patients of The Ridges. Of those graves, 1,659 were only marked only with a number until the state of Ohio began putting names, births and deaths on each stone that was missing this information in 1943. Many of the oldest stones had not been replaced until recently.

Today, the Ridges exist as a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art, an auditorium and many offices, classrooms and storage facilities.

As you might imagine, the asylum is a decidedly eerie sight, and now, for a few select dates throughout October, guests will be able to revel in the ghostly glory of The Ridges on intimate walking tours. The tours are hosted by George Eberts, a long-time Appalachian Behavioral Health employee and Athens Asylum advocate.

Guests will meet in front of the Kennedy Museum of Art and Eberts will then lead the group on an outdoor walking tour of the grounds, cemeteries and various buildings within the complex. While on the walking tour, guests will learn more about the history of mental health treatment, the asylum, the cemeteries and more as it pertains to the asylum.

Tours will be taking place on Friday, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24 at 2 p.m., Friday, Oct. 30 at 10 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 for members, $18 for non-members, $10 for students and children 12 and under are free. The tour on Friday, Oct. 30, or All Hallow’s Eve, will be $25 for members, $30 for non-members, $20 for students and children 12 and under are free.

All guests are required to wear masks and the tour takes place outdoors in order to maintain proper social distancing practices.

To reserve your spot, call Dominique at 740-592-2280, ext. 100. Space will be limited, so be sure to reserve a spot as soon as possible. For more information about The Ridges, Kennedy Museum of Art, the Southeast Ohio History Center and tour offerings, pay a visit to athenshistory.org .

About the Author

Ashley Moor is a Dayton native and graduate of Kent State University. She is a multimedia journalist for Dayton.com, and strives to provide impactful stories about the community and its people.

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The athens lunatic asylum.

The Athens Lunatic Asylum, now a development known as The Ridges, was a mental hospital in Athens, Ohio. It was in operation from 1874 until 1993. During its tenure, the hospital provided a wide variety of services to many different types of patients including Civil War veterans, children, and those who were declared to be ‘mentally unwell’ including violent criminals. The hospital is best known as a site of the infamous lobotomy procedure, as well as countless ghostly sightings.

One may think Ohio is unassuming in regards to hauntings, but let us prove otherwise with our Cincinnati ghost tour !

Athens Asylum Construction

Levi T. Scofield of Cleveland, Ohio was the original architect for the building. The hospital grounds were designed by Cincinnati’s Herman Haerlin. The design was influenced by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a 19th-century physician who developed a special type of design style for mental asylums, which are characterized by their bat-wing floor plan and sprawling grounds.

The land where the hospital was built belonged to the Arthur Coates and Eliakim H. Moore farms. The ground was broken in mid-autumn of 1868, with the first iteration of the asylum consisting of only 141 acres, much less than the usual Kirkbride designs of the time. Over the years, the hospital sprawled, and it grew to occupy over 1,000 acres.

The Asylum’s Operating Years

Athens Lunatic Asylum opened its doors for operation on January 9th, 1874. Within two years, the hospital was renamed The Athens Hospital for the Insane and changed names, some a bit questionable, a few times before finally landing on the Athens Mental Health Center.

Many Kirkbride asylums operated as makeshift communities — for decades the hospital had livestock, gardens, and farming fields. It also included an orchard, a dairy, a plant to generate steam heat, and a carriage shop. A large percentage of the labor carried out daily on the farm was done by the hospital’s patients. Skilled labor was seen by the Kirkbride Plan as a form of therapy and was also economically advantageous to the state.

The asylum expanded exponentially by 1950, where two other hospitals and cottages are built to house more patients. by the mid-1950s, the hospital was the town’s largest employer with 1,800 patients on a one-thousand-nineteen acre, 78 building campus. At its peak, the Athens Lunatic Asylum served fifteen Ohio counties.

The Asylum’s Patients

The first patient treated at the hospital was a 14-year-old girl with epilepsy, which was considered to be caused by the possession of a demon. Epilepsy was a reason for admission in the early years of the asylum. The first annual report stated that 31 men and 19 women were admitted due to epilepsy during the first year.

Ailments such as alcohol addiction, tuberculosis, and menopause were cause for enrollment at the asylum. For female patients, the leading causes of their ‘insanity’ were ‘change of life,’ ‘menstrual derangements,’ and ‘hysteria.’ Women with postpartum depression were also sent to the asylum to recover. As one can see, patients were often institutionalized for ridiculous and sometimes even fallacious reasons.

Records from the asylum tell of what caused mental illness during the time of its operations, as well as the practice of lobotomies and other harmful treatments. The Ohio University collected information in regards to the training that the asylum employees underwent, some of which had none. More disturbing is the documentation of electroshock therapy, lobotomy, hydrotherapy, and early psychotropic drugs, most of which have become known as being extremely inhumane.

Decline and Closure

The mental health industry rapidly changed in the 1950s for the better. Research began to show that the mentally ill did not pose an inherent danger to the people around them and it wasn’t necessary to separate them from their homes and communities. The public also was becoming aware of the risks and inhumane nature of procedures like lobotomies and electroshock therapy. The availability of medicines for the treatment of mental illness was also increasing, and allowed for most patients to be treated without the need for institutionalization.

The Athens Asylum declined through the end of the 20th century and eventually closed in 1993. In the same year, the Athen’s Lunatic Asylums’ property was deeded to Ohio University. The college kept the property in good shape and it was maintained for reuse.

Urban exploration and modern ruins became increasingly popular through media and Kirkbride Plan asylums enjoyed a renewed sense of attention, such as Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts.

The property was restored into a mixed-use development called ‘The Ridges.’ and most of the buildings have been renovated and turned into classrooms and offices.

The Mysterious Cemeteries

Many mysteries surround the asylum due to the secrecy and lack of information surrounding the patents who were treated there. What is known, is that there are 1,930 people buried across three cemeteries located at The Ridges. Most of these people were patients who were unclaimed by their families and are marked only with a number — their names dying with them, a truly heartbreaking thought. By the 1980s the cemeteries were no longer being taken care of, and vandalism as well as natural weathering caused irreparable damage. These days, the National Alliance on Mental Illness is working to gather information about the patients buried there, and to restore their headstones and the cemetery as a whole, bringing their memory back to the forefront.

Hauntings of the Athens Lunatic Asylum

While many deaths occurred in and around the asylum, as few truly stand out. One tells of a patient named Margaret Schilling, who disappeared on December 1st, 1978. It wasn’t until January the following year that her body was discovered in a long-abandoned ward. While her autopsy showed she died of heart failure, she was found completely named with her clothing neatly folded next to her body. More interesting in the permanent stain that her body left behind, imprinted on the floor, unable to be removed by numerous cleanings. Her spirit is said to be seen staring down from the window of the room where her body was found, she’s also been seen attempting escape, and is known the wander the building at night.

Other former patients are also said to have stayed behind, appearing as full-bodied apparitions standing in the empty wings of the former hospital, disembodied voices and yells. Squeaking gurneys, strange lights, and screams are also commonplace. Even more frightening, there are rumors that patients who were shackled in the basement for ‘bad behavior’ still remain.

The cemeteries are all reportedly haunted as well. Shadow figures running and hiding behind trees and headstones are reported, and in one area, the grave’s linear shapes form a circle, which is said to be an old witches meeting spot.

While the truth is mixed in with legend when it comes to the asylum, there is no doubt that many people suffered here at the hands of abusive staff members and archaic methods of healing. Spirits of those who died and were forgotten are the loudest, banging on the windows and the walls of the old asylum, wandering the grounds, looking to catch the attention of anyone who comes looking for them.

For another spooky asylum down under, check out our article about Australia’s Aradale Asylum!

Sources Cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Lunatic_Asylum

https://www.hockinghills.com/members/The_Ridges.html

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Photo Project Takes Viewers Inside Old Athens Asylum

Posted on: Wednesday, April 22, 2020

WOUB to hold YouTube Premiere of asylum documentary on Friday  

ATHENS, OH – The Old Athens State Mental Hospital, now known as The Ridges, is a place that fascinates many. In 2013, WOUB Public Media produced a documentary, which is being released for free on YouTube this Friday, on the cemeteries located at the Asylum to tell the stories of patients who were buried on the asylum grounds under numbered tombstones. Many Ohio University offices are currently located in the buildings, but a large portion of the facility remains empty and has been closed to the public. But, there’s a new way to get inside and see what those historic buildings look like.

Michigan Photographer Christian VanAntwerpen is the creator of a photography series called Project Kirkbride . The project captures detailed images of old asylums built under the Kirkbride architecture style for historic preservation. The Kirkbride Plan was created by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-19th century. Kirkbride believed in a concept called moral treatment which meant he believed that with the right environment and lifestyle mental illness could be cured.

“ Project Kirkbride started in 2013 when the old asylum in Fergus Falls, Minnesota was at risk of demolition, and I suggested the idea of photographing every square inch,” said VanAntwerpen.

The project then grew to other asylums across the United States.

“The ultimate goal with Project Kirkbride is to have a definitive collection of buildings that have been completely documented for the sake of history as a preservation tool to show people what these buildings were like as we get further and further from that concept of the Kirkbride plan and the moral treatment of the mentally ill. I think of it as a reminder that we had this period where we cared this much about mental health, and we built these giant castles of care.”

“It was quite an experience. The thing that is amazing about the Athens buildings is that you turn a corner, and the light is completely different,” said VanAntwerpen. “The pictures don’t do it justice because of scale but literally you could drive a car through those hallways. It was that large. From the outside the building doesn’t look that big. When you go on the inside it felt huge. That’s what stood out to me the most.”

“Preservation and restoration are a great exercise of the human spirit to be able to switch these buildings around and turn them into something fantastic rather than tear them down,” said VanAntwerpen. “If we knock down the physical reminders of our past, we are most likely to repeat the mistakes that were made in the process.”

You can view all of VanAntwerpen’s photos of the Athens asylum at https://christianvanantwerpen.com/athensstatehospital

You can watch WOUB’s live YouTube Premiere of The 1900: Voices from the Athens Asylum on Friday, April 24 at 8 p.m. here: https://bit.ly/The1900

From insane asylum to art center, Ohio University’s Ridges complex showcases Athens’ past and present

• Published: Jun. 09, 2022, 8:51 a.m.

Lin Hall, on the campus of Ohio University in Athens, is home to the school's Kennedy Museum of Art. It's part of The Ridges complex on the grounds of the former Athens Lunatic Asylum, designed by Cleveland architect Levi Scofield.

• Susan Glaser, cleveland.com

ATHENS, Ohio – Atop a hill just south of town, a sprawling former complex that once housed the Athens Lunatic Asylum is now an art museum, observatory, hiking destination and more.

It’s also an architectural marvel, a massive, ornate cluster of Late Victorian-era buildings designed in the 1860s by Cleveland architect Levi Scofield, a Civil War veteran who also designed the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in downtown Cleveland and the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield.

The complex, now known as The Ridges, became part of Ohio University in the 1990s, adding more than 700 acres and 700,000 square feet of building space to the campus.

“It’s a tremendous resource,” said Shawna Wolfe, associate vice president of university planning, with plenty of space for both college and community use.

The university has been slowly renovated buildings and completed a master plan of the property in 2014. Even so, much of the property remains vacant, awaiting funding and development plans.

“There’s a list a mile long of ideas,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll fall short on what it can become.”

The complex was initially part of the Kirkbride Plan, a nationwide system of mental asylums conceived by American psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride, who advocated for a more humane, nature-based treatment of mental illness. At its height, more than 100 Kirkbride hospitals existed in the U.S., many with the plan’s trademark central administration building and long residential wings on either side with separate rooms for male and female patients.

The Athens facility held as many as 1,800 patients at its peak in the 1950s. By then, however, the treatment of psychiatric patients had changed – and so had the facility’s name. Over its 100-plus year history, the facility was called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, the Athens Hospital for the Insane, the Athens State Hospital and, finally, the Athens Mental Health Center, which relocated to the center of town in 1993.

In 1996, the Kennedy Museum of Art opened in Lin Hall, the complex’s centerpiece building, with its trademark five-story towers, multi-story porch and mansard roof.

The museum features a rotating mix of exhibits, featuring art from permanent and traveling collections. On exhibit now: “Night Skies: Navajo Textiles Depicting Sandpaintings;” “Representations of Women in KMA Collections,” put together by education interns; and an exhibit highlighting the work of students in the museum studies program, “Merging Concepts VIII, Connections Remembered.”

There’s also an exhibit of recent acquisitions that includes numerous photographs of other Kirkbride properties, including Buffalo State Hospital in New York, Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts and Kankakee State Hospital in Illinois.

Inside the Kennedy Museum of Art on the campus of Ohio University.

The Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens.

In addition to the Kennedy museum, The Ridges also is home to the Ohio Museum Complexes, an interdisciplinary concept that includes an interactive nature gallery, sculpture garden, hiking trails, virtual tours and more.

The university is in the process of raising money to renovate the ballroom in Lin Hall for additional museum space, according to Wolfe.

The Kennedy Museum and Ohio Museum Complexes are open daily, and admission is free. Information: ohio.edu/museum

Adjacent to The Ridges property is the Dairy Barn Arts Center, now a private nonprofit, but previously part of the asylum complex. Located in a renovated 1914-era barn, the facility functions as an exhibit, educational and event space. Currently on exhibit: “Layered and Stitched: 50 Years of Innovative Art,” featuring 50 art quilts by master artists. Also here: “86 Reasons for Asylum Admission” by Cleveland artist Kimberly Chapman.

The Dairy Barn is also host to the Quilt National, a juried, biennial exhibition of contemporary quilt art that runs in odd years. Information: dairybarn.org

Cycling and sipping along Brewed on the Bikeway in Athens, where the public library offers bicycles to borrow

New Lodge at Hocking College offers lesson in hospitality near Hocking Hills, Ohio University

The former Athens Lunatic Asylum, now part of Ohio University, was designed by Cleveland architect Levi Scofield.

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The Athens Asylum Was at the Forefront of Treatment in the 19th Century

A victorian asylum has become a museum—and a setting for horror stories. .

An early glass slide image of the Athens Asylum.

Snow Collection, Southeast Ohio History Center

It has the most dramatic vista in Athens: a Victorian-era, Gothic Revival building that once served as a mental hospital, made of red brick and overlooking the Hocking River Valley, with rolling grounds gorgeous enough for teenagers to stage their prom photos and architecture ominous enough to star in B-movie horror flicks.

The building and its history, says Patricia N. Williamsen, executive director of Ohio Humanities, “are very much a part of the physical and psychic landscape.” The most arresting and remembered work by Cleveland architect Levi Scofield, the edifice looms high and heavy over this town of twenty-four thousand near the West Virginia border.

In March, the Southeast Ohio History Center opened an exhibit to commemorate the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the hospital’s dedication. The exhibit runs through the end of the year.

The property has been known for generations as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Construction began in 1867 and the building, though unfinished, was dedicated the following year. A somewhat infamous landmark, given the general misunderstanding of mental illness, decades of questionable patient treatment, and frequent overcrowding, the asylum once represented the gold standard of treatment.

“A wave of asylums [were] built in America in the nineteenth century,” says Katherine Ziff, an Ohio University adjunct professor who published in 2012  Asylum on the Hill: History of a Healing Landscape , upon which the exhibit is based.

The first public institution for the mentally ill in America opened in Williamsburg, Virginia, in the 1770s, and Ziff notes that the grand asylums (which, like the one in Athens, included ballrooms and amusement parlors) replaced “poor houses, jails, private asylums” and many smaller mental hospitals across the nation. The asylum era was also the first time nurses and attendants were trained specifically in the treatment of mental illness.

Encompassing one thousand acres, the Athens bluff also holds the hospital cemetery and is surrounded by former farmland, worked by the men and women who were committed there, as many as eighteen hundred in the 1950s.

Now known as the Ridges, the asylum is home to the Kennedy Museum of Art of Ohio University. The museum took over much of the property from the state department of mental health in 1988 and the last patients were transferred to a new, nearby facility in 1993.

In small anterooms at the art museum’s entrance are vintage photographs from the building’s asylum days and some text, including a quote from Charles Gall, a long-ago foreman on the asylum farm who rued the day that drugs like Thorazine began to replace farm work in the 1950s. “The farm provided therapy for patients to help them forget their problems,” he said.

“One of the tenets of ‘moral treatment’ [for the mentally ill] was the role of the landscape—beautiful views of nature were seen to be curative, as well as taking outdoor exercise,” says Ziff.

Contemporary approaches to nature-based therapy—healing gardens and ecotherapy, for example—have emerged in treatment, says Ziff, who is also a mental health clinician and the director of the project commemorating the asylum’s anniversary.

Activity once described as “meaningful occupation” in the “moral treatment” model promoted by mental health advocate Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809–1883)—lots of sun and air, kitchen work, milking cows, picking fruit, mending shirts—was considered key in “training the mind” all the way up to the middle of the twentieth century. The practice ended when a federal court ruled in 1973 that patient labor had to be compensated with minimum wages and overtime. By the 1980s, the process of deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill gained momentum, and state hospitals, such as Athens, began to close.

The project commemorating the sesquicentennial encompasses all phases of treatment at the asylum. It was funded in part by Ohio Humanities and installed earlier this year at the Southeast Ohio History Center, headquartered in the World War I-era First Christian Church of Athens, about two miles from the Ridges.

This glass slide shows the picturesque landscape of the asylum.

The exhibit—which carries the same title as Ziff’s book—includes asylum artifacts along with oral histories from doctors, employees, former patients, and their families. One of the more intriguing items in the exhibit is a violin made from scratch in 1930 by a patient identified only as “John.” It is on display with a lobotomy pick—once used in surgery to subdue as many as 20 patients in a single day—and an early electroshock therapy machine.

An aspect that Ziff and her colleagues do not dwell on is the enthusiasm for the paranormal that draws some visitors to the imposing building. The subject inevitably arose, however, at public talks organized around the exhibit.

“Oh, the spooky stuff—it does bother me,” says Ziff, noting that the thrill of being frightened in such places comes at the cost of misery once suffered there. In 2000, she says, a TV program filmed at the asylum and its woefully neglected burial grounds named the Ridges one of the “world’s scariest places.”

In response, the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness cleaned up the three graveyards on the property, set aright the tombstones, and endeavored to demystify the image of a psychiatric hospital as the final resting place for its former patients. Easier said than done, especially with so many raucous fraternity houses nearby, local Halloween celebrations that attract thousands, and all manner of dares and double-dares that go on.

In 2016, Ohio author Mindy McGinnis won an Edgar Award for her young adult historical thriller  A Madness So Discreet , which is set at the asylum. She had never been to the Athens hospital when she conceived the novel, but had heard about it through books and television as a haunted place, which she then visited.

“It provided a meeting point for many of my interests,” says McGinnis. “The history of mental illness, women’s rights, the evolution of medical treatments, and old architecture.”

Grace Savage works a reception desk for visitors to the Kennedy Museum. “People are always asking me how many ghosts I’ve seen,” says Savage, a sociology major at Ohio University.

Answer: none.

Rafael Alvarez is the author of  Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown , a story collection.

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This article is available for unedited republication, free of charge, using the following credit: “Originally published as "150 Years of the Athens Asylum" in the Summer 2018 issue of  Humanities  magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities.” Please notify us at  @email  if you are republishing it or have any questions.

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Legends of America

Traveling through american history, destinations & legends since 2003., haunted athens asylum for the insane, ohio.

Athens Asylum

Today, this complex, called the Ridges, is part of Ohio University, but these historic buildings once housed the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Not only are these buildings steeped in history, but some are also said to still “host” visitors from the past.

The historic hospital got its start in 1867 when the Ohio Legislature appointed a commission to find a site for an asylum in southeastern Ohio. A suitable site was found in Athens, and Levi T. Scofield was chosen as the architect. The buildings and grounds’ designs were influenced by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a 19th-century physician who authored a book on mental hospital design. His designs were often recognizable for their “batwing” floor plans and lavish Victorian architecture.

The original design included an administration building with two wings, one that would house the males and the other for females. The building itself was 853 feet long, 60 feet wide, and built with red bricks fired from clay dug on-site. Built onto the back were a laundry room and boiler house. Seven cottages were also constructed to house even more patients. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double of what Kirkbride had recommended, leading to overcrowding and conflicts between the patients.

The administrative section, located between the two resident wings, included an entrance hall, offices, a reception room on the first floor, the superintendent’s residence on the second floor, and quarters for other officers and physicians on the 3rd and 4th floors. A large high ceiling amusement hall filled the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a chapel was included on the 4th floor. Behind and beneath the building’s public and private spaces were the heating and mechanical systems, kitchens, cellars, storerooms, and workspaces.

The site, which was first comprised of 141 acres, would eventually grow to 1,019 acres, including cultivated, wooded, and pasture land. The grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati and would incorporate landscaped hills and trees, decorative lakes, a spring, and a creek with a waterfall. Not only would the patients enjoy the beautiful landscape, but citizens also enjoyed the extensive grounds. Though the facility would never be fully self-sustaining, over the years, the grounds would include livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a receiving hospital, a Tubercular Ward, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop in the earlier years.

The hospital, first called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, officially began operations on January 9, 1874. Within two years, it was renamed the Athens Hospital for the Insane. Over the years, its name would be changed many times to the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center.

Bird’s Eye view of Athens, Ohio Asylum

During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients, including Civil War veterans, children, the elderly, the homeless, rebellious teenagers being taught a lesson by their parents, and violent criminals suffering from various mental and physical disabilities. With diagnoses ranging from the slightest distress to severely mentally ill, these patients were provided various forms of care, many of which have been discredited today. The asylum was best known for its practice of lobotomy, but it was also known to have practiced hydrotherapy, electroshock, restraint, and psychotropic drugs, many of which have been found to be harmful today.

More interesting are the causes listed for admission, including epilepsy, menopause, alcohol addiction, and tuberculosis. General “ill health” also accounted for many admissions, which included in the first three years of operation 39 men and 44 women. For the female patients hospitalized during these first three years of the asylum’s operation, the three leading causes of insanity are recorded as “puerperal condition” (relating to childbirth), “change of life,” and “menstrual derangements.” According to an 1876 report, the leading cause of insanity among male patients was masturbation. The second most common cause of insanity was listed as intemperance (alcohol). Depending upon their condition, a patient’s treatment could range from full care to amazing freedom.

Over the years, numerous buildings were added, including a farm office, a new amusement hall, additional wards and residences, a laundry building, power plant, garages, stables, mechanics shops, a firehouse, therapy rooms, and dozens of others. By the 1950s, the hospital was using 78 buildings and was treating 1,800 patients.

Athens Asylum cemetery courtesy Encyclopedia of Forlorn Places

In the 1960s, the total square footage of the facility was recorded at 660,888 square feet. At this time, its population peaked at nearly 2,000 patients, over three times its capacity. However, the number of patients would begin to decline for the next several decades as de-institutionalization accelerated. As the number of people at the Asylum declined, the buildings and wards were abandoned one by one.

Comprised of three graveyards, burials began soon after the institution’s opening as there were deceased patients who were unclaimed by their families. Until 1943 the burials were headed only by stones with numbers, with the names of the dead known only in recorded ledgers. Only one register exists today, which contains the names of 1,700 of the over 2,000 burials. In 1972 the last patients were buried in the asylum cemetery. Today the cemeteries continue to be maintained by the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

In 1977, Athens Asylum made news when it housed multiple personality rapist Billy Milligan. In the highly publicized court case, Milligan was found to have committed several felonies, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. In preparing his defense, psychologists diagnosed Milligan with multiple personality disorder, from which the doctors said he had suffered from early childhood. He was the first person diagnosed with multiple personality disorder to raise such a defense and the first acquitted of a major crime for this reason. Milligan was then sent to a series of state-run mental hospitals, including Athens. While at these hospitals, Milligan reported having ten different personalities. Later 14 more personalities were said to have been discovered. After a decade, Milligan was discharged. He died of cancer at a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio, on December 12, 2014, at 59.

The next year, the hospital made the news again when a patient named Margaret Schilling disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979, 42 days later that, her body was discovered by a maintenance worker in a locked long-abandoned ward once used for patients with infectious illnesses. Though tests showed that she died of heart failure, she was found completely naked with her clothing neatly folded next to her body. More interesting is the permanent stain that her body left behind. Clearly, an imprint of her hair and body can still be seen on the floor, even though numerous attempts have been made to remove it.

By 1981 the hospital housed fewer than 300 patients, numerous buildings stood abandoned, and over 300 acres were transferred to Ohio University. In 1988, the facilities and grounds (excluding the cemeteries) were deeded from the Department of Mental Health to Ohio University.

The Athens Center officially closed in 1993, and the remaining patients transferred to another facility. The property stood vacant for several years before restoration began. The name of the property was changed to the “Ridges” and in 2001 renovation work was completed on the main building, known as Lin Hall. Today it houses music, geology, biotechnology offices, storage facilities, and the Kennedy Museum of Art. Over the years, other hospital buildings were modeled and used by the University, although many others still sit abandoned.

It comes as no surprise that the buildings of this historic asylum are allegedly haunted. One of the most famous ghosts is that of Margaret Shilling, who left her body print upon the hospital floor. Her spirit is said to have appeared staring down from the window of the room where her body was found, has been seen attempting to escape, and has been known to wander various parts of the building at night. And, according to some, she is not alone. Other former patients are also said to remain in residence, with reports from visitors seeing strange figures standing in the empty wings of the former hospital, hearing disembodied voices and squeaking gurneys, seeing strange lights, and hearing screams echoing through the walls. More frightening, there are rumors of spirits of patients who remain shackled in the basement. These many spirits are thought to be those who died or suffered at the hands of staff in the asylum.

The cemetery is also said to be haunted by shadowy people and strange lights. In one area, the graves’ linear shapes form a circle, which is said to be a witches’ meeting point.

Tours of the outside grounds of the old asylum are held on the third Sunday of each month.

©  Kathy Weiser-Alexander / Legends of America , updated April 2021.

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The history of The Ridges

You know the big foreboding buildings that stand atop the hill across the river?

That’s part of The Ridges, formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. 

As ideas about mental illness began to shift in the mid and late 1800s, more institutions built upon government funding were created to house, and aimed to heal, those suffering from mental illnesses. Among these were The Ridges, which was built to aid the patients under the moral treatment model created by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride.

The moral treatment plan aimed at rehabilitating patients to the highest extent possible by making sure the building wasn’t overcrowded, there was adequate access to fresh air and the building was in a natural setting to allow farming and recreation for the patients. 

As a result, the Athens Lunatic Asylum began construction in 1868 and admitted its first patient in 1874, a fourteen-year-old girl with epilepsy. However, within the coming years, countless patients would be admitted, which would often leave the asylum overcrowded. As a result, more cottages would be built to house more patients in dormitory-style rooms.

Although, it was never enough, and the facility would house over 2,000 patients at its most populated. While this provided ample employment for residents of neighboring Athens, Ohio, many were not properly trained in the medical field. 

This led to greater risks when performing medical procedures. Throughout the mid-20th century, greater research into psychiatry led to so-called “breakthrough” treatments. Some, like art therapy, are still used today. Others, such as electroshock therapy and hydrotherapy, were modified from their borderline barbaric roots to be something better for patients.

For example, rather than using warm pools to perform special exercises to relieve joint pain, hydrotherapy at this point in time might have involved something like using extremely hot or freezing cold water to bathe a patient in hopes that it would help their mental state. Others, however, like the infamous lobotomy, were performed here. As a result, many patients were killed, or at the very least horrendously incapacitated. 

Around this time, there were also breakthroughs being made in psychiatric drugs. For the first time ever, there were dramatic improvements over much shorter periods of time for the mentally ill. As a result, fewer patients began to be admitted, and there was genuine hope for the improved mental states of the patients. 

Furthermore, a new hospital by the name of Appalachian Behavioral Health Care was built close by, aiming to be a more improved psychiatric care facility. As a result, most of the patients were transferred over there, reducing the population of patients to 200. With the reduction in patients, the asylum was given to Ohio University, and the community nicknamed it The Ridges. In 1993, the last patients were transferred over to Appalachian Behavioral Health Care. 

Or so they thought. 

Ghost stories circulate around The Ridges, all surrounding tales of patients who never left. Margaret Schilling is an example. She was a patient who disappeared in December 1978 and was not found until the following January, dead in an upstairs room. She went undiscovered for so long that her body left a permanent stain on the floor. As a result of her mysterious death, rumors circulate that her ghost can be seen peering out of the window of the room she was found in. 

But, allegedly, her ghost has ample company. Disembodied voices, apparitions in the buildings and the surrounding cemeteries and other mysterious spirits are rumored to haunt the halls and grounds of The Ridges. 

Today, though, The Ridges have become a historical landmark, and part of it has been converted into an art museum. Other parts have been converted into classrooms. Still, more has been utilized by the Ohio University Police Department. Despite its morbid history and dark reputation, The Ridges still serves as a vital part of Athens’ history that has been given new life.

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Athens State Hospital

• 2 Images of Athens State Hospital
• 6 References

History [ edit ]

In 1867 the Ohio Legislature appointed a commission to find a site for an asylum in south-eastern Ohio. A site in Athens was found suitable. Construction began in 1867 and the Athens Lunatic Asylum was completed during 1874. Levi T. Scofield was the architect. The Athens Mental Health Center opened on January 9, 1874 on land purchased from the Coate's farm. The asylum itself was built from bricks which were fired on-site from clay dug on-site. Herman Haerlin, a student of Frederick Law Olmstead (the designer of Central Park), was responsible for the design of the hospital and its grounds. By the turn of the twentieth century, orchards and farmland were maintained on the property, tended to by hospital residents and employees. This made the hospital nearly self-sufficient. Nevertheless, at the time of its construction it was a major boon to the economy of the city of Athens, which was able to supply milk, eggs, linens, and other necessities. Local citizens made use of Haerlin's extensive grounds, which included landscaped hills and trees, a pond, a spring, and a creek with a falls.

The Administration building housed offices of the Superintendent, assistant physicians, steward, and a general reception room for visitors. Two wings added to the building were used for patients. The second floor contained apartments of the medical superintendent. The third and fourth floors were used for administrative offices.

Over the years the buildings and grounds at the Athens Mental Health Center underwent many changes. In the 1920s a fire destroyed the grand ballroom. In 1924 a building was erected on the grounds for the treatment of mentally ill patients with tuberculosis. In 1928 the dairy barn went in, making the hospital almost self-sufficient. Later, in 1960, part of the farmland belonging to the hospital was acquired by Ohio University for the construction of the Convocation Center. Between 1968 and 1972 the Hocking River and State Route 682 were rerouted, eliminating the reservoir as well as four of the decorative lakes on the property.

In 1977 multiple personality rapist Billy Milligan was sent by a Franklin County judge to Athens for treatment after his insanity plea was accepted by prosecutors--a first in American history. Milligan had kidnapped and raped three women on campus at Ohio State but had been suffering from mutliple personality disorder from early childhood. His story was told in the book The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes (the author of Flowers for Algernon). Billy Milligan's stay at the Ridges was among the last ever. In 1972 the last patients were buried in the asylum cemetery; by 1981 the hospital housed fewer than 300 patients. 344 acres of land were transferred to Ohio University. The final patients left the Athens Center in 1993, when they were bused to a new, much smaller hospital across town. The building stood vacant for several years while Ohio University prepared to renovate it into museum, office, and classroom space.

In 2001 renovation work was completed on the main building, which today is known as Lin Hall and houses music, geology, and biotechnology offices, as well as the Kennedy Museum of Art. Nearly all of the dozens of hospital buildings have been remodeled and put to use by the University. [1] Although the main administration building and some sections of the patient wings have been renovated, much of the Kirkbride is still empty and awaiting reuse.

Like many other Kirkbrides, the building sits on top of a hill. It faces the nearby Hocking River looking toward the center of Athens and the main campus of Ohio University. The building appears to be in exceptionally good condition, although the cupolas which used to crown parts of the roof are now missing. The ward interiors don't have much in terms of remaining nineteenth-century architectural details either. [2]

Images of Athens State Hospital [ edit ]

Main Image Gallery: Athens State Hospital

Cemetery [ edit ]

Three cemeteries are on the grounds of the hospital, maintained by the Ohio Dept. of Mental Health. About 2,000 former patients are buried in the 3 cemeteries, most are marked with only a number.

Books [ edit ]

Asylum on the Hill: History of a Healing Landscape , Katherine Ziff. Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2012. Search WorldCat for library copy

Videos [ edit ]

• Video from Kirkbrides HD ~ http://www.vimeo.com/channels/KirkbridesHD
• http://www.vimeo.com/kirkbrideshd/athens

The 1900 : voices from the Athens Asylum WOUB Television station : Athens, Ohio. Athens, Ohio : WOUB Center for Public Media, 2013. Search WorldCat for library copy

References [ edit ]

• ↑ http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/athens/

Links [ edit ]

• Walter Freeman's Lobotomies at Athens State Hospital
• Athens State Hospital @ Kirkbridebuildings.com

Records [ edit ]

Athens Mental Health Center Collections Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries. Athens Mental Health Center Policies

• Kirkbride Buildings
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• Institution With A Cemetery
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Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Psychiatric care at the historical Athens Mental Health Facility

Cherron Payne Farmington, Connecticut, United States

When I was an undergraduate student at Ohio University in Athens, my friends and I would often hike to an intriguing place called the Ridges, overlooking the picturesque Hocking River and the Appalachian gem of Ohio University in Southeastern Ohio. The Ridges was not solely a picturesque hillside, but a campus of stately red brick buildings exhibiting the Kirkbride architecture widely used for psychiatric institutions during the mid-nineteenth century. The campus of cobblestone walkways and Victorian Gothic buildings, designed by Levi Scofield, has a haunting past as a psychiatric institution for the mentally ill, mentally delayed, and the criminally insane.

During one of my vernal hikes to the Ridges, I remember peering through the windows of the abandoned asylum buildings. The institution had closed, and the buildings had been conveyed to Ohio University. While the façade of the buildings exhibited a sturdy appearance, the insides were in disrepair. The baby blue paint on the walls was peeling, resembling nail marks feverishly peeling away the paint in protest. However, the buildings’ disrepair was not what was troubling; it was observing a structure resembling a large cage that was chilling. My observation, coupled with my peers’ disturbing accounts, formulated a haunting image of the abandoned Athens Asylum and sparked a curiosity about its history.

Construction on the Athens Asylum commenced in 1868 and concluded in 1873. The asylum opened in 1874 as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. From 1874 to 1993 there were ten iterations of the facility name, concluding with the Athens Mental Health Facility as the final name. The Athens facility could service more than 1,800 patients, although there was often overcrowding, insufficient staff, and a lack of medicine. The Athens Asylum provided services for a spectrum of mental illnesses including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dissociative disorder, anxiety disorder, and mental disability. However, patients could also be admitted for mild depression, religious zeal, epilepsy, tuberculosis, postpartum depression, and menstrual disorders. Tuberculosis patients were also housed at the Athens Mental Health Facility because it was believed that the facility’s elevation on a hillside would provide fresh air and a serene setting for tubercular patients. Children and adolescents were included in the patient population. The first admittee in 1874 was a fourteen-year-old girl who was suffering from epilepsy. Epilepsy was often misunderstood in the nineteenth century and many thought it stemmed from demonic possession. Some of the other nineteenth century patients included former Civil War soldiers who were suffering from what appeared to be post-traumatic stress disorder. Other patients may have been court-ordered to the facility if found to be criminally insane.

The Athens Asylum has been praised and criticized for its treatment of its patients. The bucolic setting of the Athens Mental Health Facility presented treatment opportunities that were more humane than some of the questionable and archaic treatments utilized at competing asylums. Patients were instructed to garner outside exercise in the sun, which included milking cows and picking fruit. Additionally, there was no physical punishment at the Athens Mental Health Facility.

However, some treatments, often considered inhumane, were also utilized. Lobotomies and electroshock therapies were administered, often yielding permanent and undesired effects. Hydrotherapy, such as very hot and cold baths and showers were used, as well as questionable psychotropic drugs. There was also the issue of patient neglect.

A notable incident occurred at the Athens Mental Health Facility in the case of Margaret Schilling. In December of 1978 a mentally delayed woman disappeared. During the winter of 1979, she was found lifeless and nude on the floor of a room that was locked from the inside. Schilling’s decomposed body left a permanent stain on the floor of the facility room. It is believed that the combination of her decomposed body, sunlight, and cleaning agents caused a chemical reaction, creating a stain that remains on the property today. The site of the stain was initially designated as a crime scene, but the police investigation found no foul play or third-party entanglement.

The official cause of Margaret Schilling’s death is heart failure due to the frigid temperatures she endured during a cold Ohio winter in an unheated room. There are many theories about what caused the tragedy of Margaret Schilling; some attribute it to egregious neglect, incompetence, foul play, suicide, or even murder. While we may never know what happened, this incident invokes contemplation on the history of psychiatric treatment and the conduct in mental asylums in the United States and abroad.

The history of mental illness documents Hippocrates, Plato, and other scholars attempting to advance ideologies and therapies regarding mental illness often without a sound understanding of its cause and effective treatment. While some proposed therapies did help to advance science, many societal members developed their own beliefs about the cause of mental illnesses. For example, Jean-Martin Charcot assigned the etiology of mental illness to the cortical dysfunction of the cerebrum. In Christianity, mental illness or hysteria was believed to be caused by demonic possession. The belief that mental illness was aligned with evil and demonic possession cast a shadow over the understanding of mental illness, leading to uninformed social mores and disheartening banishment of the mentally ill.

An example of historical beliefs about the evil and shameful nature of mental illness can be found at the Ridges where the patient cemetery of the former Athens Asylum remains. The cemetery aligns with the edge of the former mental health facility and consists of acres of grave markers representing the deceased patients. Many of the patients’ grave markers are nameless with only a number carved into the headstones. Because of the sociocultural mores during this time, many believed their mentally ill family member was inherently evil or possessed by a demon. Therefore, family members abandoned the patient after admission into the facility and did not claim their relative upon death.

The misconception of mental illness and its corresponding psychiatric mistreatment was not solely an issue at one particular facility. Such views have been recorded throughout the history of mental institutions in the United States and abroad. Some inhumane treatments that were administered were insulin shock therapy, trephination, tooth extraction, lobotomy, bleeding, purging, exorcism, and Metrazol shock therapy.

As time elapsed, and more research was conducted concerning mental illness, psychiatric care improved. Scholars such as Jung and Freud introduced more insightful understanding of mental illness and psychology. The advent of antipsychotic drugs, including Thorazine, also aided the expulsion of some inhumane treatments.

Over time, the Athens Mental Health Facility improved its therapies and treatment. In a transcript discussing the Athens facility, a 1907 annual report was referenced. The report indicated significant advancement in general medicine including mental illness. For example, in 1943, the health facility started placing identifying information on the headstones of the newly deceased. However, the 1978 case of Margaret Schilling, occurring only fifteen years before this particular institution closed, leaves a stain on history, reminding us how the mentally ill were treated not so long ago.

References:

• Sjafiroeddin, Marilyn. “About the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center”. Ohio University Libraries Digital Archives Collection . Accessed September 9, 2021.https://media.library.ohio.edu/digital/collection/p15808coll14/id/2554/rec/39.
• Eberts, George. “Athens Sesquicentennial Speaker Series”. Ohio University. Accessed on September 14, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5ECqg_us8.
• “Athens Asylum for the Insane/Athens State Hospital Administration Building”. Ohio University Archives . Accessed on September 3, 2021. https://media.library.ohio.edu/digital/collection/p15808coll14/id/3850/rec/3.
• Alvarez, Rafael. “The Athens Asylum Was at the Forefront of Treatment in the 19th Century”. Humanities . Summer 2018, Volume 39, Number 3.
• Milano, Claire. “What Happened to Margaret Schilling?” Murder Murder News . Accessed September 14, 2021, https://murdermurder.news/2021/02/19/what-happened-to-margaret-schilling.
• Stetka, Bret, Watson, John. “Odd and Outlandish Psychiatric Treatments Through History”. Medscape . Accessed on September 8, 2021. https://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/odd-psychiatric-treatments.
• Vann, Madeline. “The 10 Worst Mental Health Treatments in History”. Everyday Health . Accessed on September 10, 2021. https://www.everydayhealth.com/pictures/worst-mental-health-treatments-history.
• Greco, Frank, Deutsch, Curtis. “Carl Gustav Jung and the Psychobiology of Schizophrenia”. Brain . Volume 140, Issue 1, January 2017.
• McLeod, Saul. “Sigmund Freud’s Theories.” Simply Psychology . Accessed on September 14, 2021. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html.

CHERRON PAYNE  is a magistrate, attorney, and contracts and compliance manager in scientific research. In 2016, she was appointed by former Governor Malloy to serve as the chair of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Dr. Payne also served as an adjunct professor at Northwestern Connecticut Community College and is currently the president of the Connecticut Magistrates Association. Dr. Payne is a Fulbright recipient and has also received a fellowship and an apprenticeship to work in biological research. She received her J.D. from Vanderbilt, a doctorate from Northeastern University, and a master’s degree from Harvard.

Fall 2021  |   Sections   |  Psychiatry & Psychology

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Athens state hospital, athens lunatic asylum; the ridges.

• Location: Athens Ohio Regional Essays: Ohio Athens County Architect: Thomas Story Kirkbride Levi T. Scofield Types: psychiatric hospitals administration buildings art museums (buildings) Styles: Italianate (North American architecture styles) High Victorian Materials: brick (clay material) stone (worked rock) iron (metal)

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Mary Anne Reeves, " Athens State Hospital ", [ Athens , Ohio ], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/OH-01-009-0050 . Last accessed: April 28, 2024.

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This large complex of brick buildings dominates the hill on Athen’s southwest side, looking out over the Hocking River, Ohio University, and the city as a whole. These institutional buildings once housed the Athens State Hospital, also called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, one of many such large-scale state-funded institutions built in the nineteenth century that reflect changing approaches to the treatment of mental illness.

In the 1860s, when Ohio General Assembly Representative Dr. William Parker Johnson became interested in opening a state-funded mental institution in his legislative district, he turned to Eliakim H. Moore to obtain land in the Athens area. Moore was prominent in public affairs in the city, county, and state, and he served as the Athens County land surveyor and as the Athens County Auditor before being appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for the Athens district. He was also a founder and later president of the First National Bank of Athens, was active in construction and financing of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1867, Johnson and Moore had successfully acquired 141 acres of land for the hospital, including 80 acres owned by Moore himself.

Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride was contracted to design the building. Kirkbride was a Pennsylvania Quaker well known for his work with the mentally ill and for standardized asylum designs intended to help with mental health treatments and the efficient operations of institutions. In Kirkbride plan buildings, for example, all rooms were under a single roof. The Athens facility is a good example of the type constructed most widely in the second half of the nineteenth century, with an imposing central block and flanking and offset wings on both sides. Support buildings were extended to the rear. In his numerous publications Kirkbride gave exact specifications for his institutional designs and the 1880 edition of On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane includes measurements like those found in the Athens facility, where the standard patient room size was nine by eleven feet with twelve-foot ceiling heights. Each room was designed for one person and the facility was designed to have a capacity of 250 patients. Kirkbride also specified size and placement of windows and even wrought-iron decorative screening.

Construction in Athens began in 1868 (as the large plaque above the central entryway indicates) and the Asylum was completed in 1874 with Levi T. Scofield as architect. Scofield was born in Cleveland in 1842, and like most young Ohio men, he served in the Civil War in Battery D, 1st Ohio Light Artillery. He was a topographer and engineer with General Jacob Cox, who became Governor of Ohio in 1866. This friendship may be the reason he was chosen as the architect of the Athens Asylum. In 1870, while the Athens facility was under construction, Scofield was hired to design the Columbus Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum, also following a Kirkbride plan. Scofield later designed the Mansfield Reformatory, the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument and the YWCA in Cleveland, and a variety of houses and schools mostly in the Cleveland area.

The four-story Athens State Hospital is built entirely of local bricks. Its imposing central block has square towers flanking the central entryway that are identical in form but with different details. Each tower has a flat roof with iron railings. The facade is symmetrical and has wings that extend on three sides. The building has a stone water table and belt courses and brick corbelling at the gable ends. The windows are in groups of two and three in the central part, all round arched with four-over-four lights and hoodmolds. The windows in the wings retain iron grills over the lower portions of the double-hung sash windows, each with decorative designs. The wings have three-story bay windows that were originally topped by turrets but these have been removed, as have the cupolas that originally ornamented the building’s roof. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a multi-storied decorative metal porch was added to the main facade, supplied by a bridge manufacturer in Springfield, Ohio. Several additions were made to the building between 1885 and 1973, most of which are support buildings either at the rear or the side of the building.

Following the Kirkbride concept, at the Athens complex, men were located on one side of the central hall building and women were on the other. Their dining rooms were also separate, and each wing housed over 500 people. The central portion of the building was the Administration Block with doctors’ offices on the top floor. The institution was intended to be self-sufficient, with a dairy, piggery, apple orchard, and gardens, all employing many of the patients. The land acreage grew to well over 1,000 acres, including two Dairy Barns and three cemeteries. (The remaining Dairy Barn is now used as an arts facility and it, too, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.)

Eventually, the population of the facility far exceeded its capacity and at one point it had over 2,000 patients, many of whom were subjected to lobotomies, electroshock “therapy,” and other procedures that were considered acceptable at the time. By about 1900, the “Cottage Plan” replaced the single-building Kirkbride Plan. Separate buildings, or cottages, were erected around the grounds. Many were designed by Columbus architect Frank Packard and built by Athens contractor Henry O’Blenness.

In the 1870s, the park-like asylum grounds attracted numerous visitors. Landscape architect Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati and gardener George Link of Athens oversaw the landscaping of approximately sixty acres of the grounds with varieties of trees and shrubs, paths, ponds, and a waterfall. Unfortunately, in 1968 the channel of the Hocking River was moved and State Route 682 expanded, which destroyed most of the landscaped grounds.

Beginning in the 1970s the State of Ohio closed many of the state-operated institutional hospitals; the Athens Asylum/State Hospital was taken over by Ohio University in the early 1990s. Ohio University has moved its art museum into the Administration Building and has several offices in other parts of the buildings.

Rock, Lois J., “Athens State Hospital,” Athens County, Ohio. National Register of Historic Places Inventory–Nomination Form, 1980. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.

Ziff, Katherine. Asylum on the Hill. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.

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• Location: Athens, Ohio Regional Overviews: Athens County Architect: Levi T. Scofield Types: psychiatric hospitals administration buildings art museums (buildings) Styles: Italianate (North American architecture styles) High Victorian Materials: brick (clay material) stone (worked rock) iron (metal)

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• Athens Lunatic Asylum (The Ridges)

Formerly The Athens Lunatic Asylum

Many mental institutions in the United States are said to be haunted and thus The Ridges from Athens, Ohio , is no exception to that. If you have ever watched a horror movie, you must have observed that these types of buildings are presented as hulking structures with lots of cobwebs and ghosts that are waiting and haunting at each corner. The abandoned buildings are even worse when it comes to haunting rumors. The Ridges from Athens, Ohio is one of the abandoned places that are said to be powerfully haunted.

The Mental Medical Centre opened here on January 9th 1874 and it specialized in the treatment of criminally and mentally insane patients. It was then known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. It took over six years to be built and many people thought that a nice quiet place would be a benefit for the health of the insane patients. The majority of the original patients were admitted there by court order or even by their own families. Sometimes these kinds of mental institutions paid an amount of money for every patient they registered when they were lacking them so many families entrusted them with their disturbed family members.

Everyone knew that, despite the large number of disturbed individuals residing there, The Ridges was a calm peaceful place, where patients benefited from fountains and picnics on the beautiful grounds. But this idyllic scenery would not to last a long time. The Ridges soon turned into an overcrowded institution that was treating its patients in a cruel way. Ice water baths, electroshock therapies and lobotomies become regular practices. The kinds of patients submitted to treatment also changed, because children turned their older parents over to the asylum and teenagers that were considered rebellious were brought here by their parents as well.

Several other strange things have happened at The Ridges, besides the cruel treatment applied to the patients. On the 1st of December 1978, a patient named Margaret Schilling mysteriously disappeared. The legend says she was playing hide and seek with the nurses, who got distracted and forgot to look for her. Over more than a month, on the 12th of January 1979 her body was found by a maintenance worker.

Her death was not as mysterious as the marks her body left on the floor. An imprint of her clothes and hair are perfectly visible on the floor. Some said that her body decomposed and the outline was formed because of the reaction of the corpse to the sunlight. This is not a very good explanation, though, because the stain is still there and reappears even after been cleaned up. Margaret Schilling is not the only former patient that is said to be still haunting The Ridges.

The Asylum has a cemetery where those who died were buried and there are rumors it is haunted as well. Because many of the patients were admitted at The Ridges by the court system, they had no remaining family and no persons to pay the funeral expenses. They were thus anonymously buried in simple graves with a number attached. At one area the linear shapes of the graves form a circle, which is said to be a witches’ meeting point.

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77 thoughts on “ athens lunatic asylum (the ridges) ”.

I am looking for someone who can assist me on scheduling a paranormal investigation for the Ridges. If someone can get ahold of me asap that would be fantastic. My team Clyde Paranormal Investigation would love this opportunity and a few already know about this location.

What would the Athens PD doing you went into the building?

My mother was a patient there twice she told me stories that I didnt believe at the time…but now do Rape/abuse etc. Also Im not sure she wasnt part of an experiment (MK Ultra)

Dad took me one time to visit but I had to stay in the car. Patients roamed the grounds and came to the car and pounded the glass. I was terrified It was like a horror movie

The building is gone forever. I was there..never went in just hiked around and explored the outside of the building. I have hiked the ridges a few time and I always get spooked and goose bumps even though its always during sunlight..even my dog has got spooked. We live in the woods, so normal forest noises don’t faze him… Athens Ohio is BadAss.

Hey, me and my friend are doing a report for a school assignment and wanted to know if we were allowed to take a short walk during the day for a certain fee. Of course, with a staff member or perfessed worker.

just wanted to give a heads up to anyone hoping to get in the ridges through the wooden door thats been mentioned in a few comments that its no longer a option that door was secured nov.2016 so well that its probably the most impossible way to get in. I just wanted to warn anyone planning going there with the hopes of getting in that way you’ll end up disappointed cus nothings getting in that door now. and to people asking yes the facilities main and largest building is still there. small buildings have been removed and the tbward sadly was tore down for more reasons then constant break in and vandalism. it was structurly unsafe the concrete floors on upper levels where completely caved in in places and at night u had to be really careful where you walked in the dark. we were exploring one night and a group of drunk kids came in and i had to run after one that was about to walk right into a room missing the floor. the main building is huge the right wing is the only part that has remained in its original abandoned state. it was once the womens ward.you can go in its basement, 3 floors, and attic, but the halls are so long and to turn a corner you enter another huge hall each floor is a maze. the ward alone is so huge in itself it takes hrs to cover. i cant even guess how many times i’ve been in there and also the tb ward before being tore down. i love old buildings, n things and my great grandpa was a patient and died there. it really is a amazing place and sad they dont share it with the public. o.u. owns the property now. and its 100% no joke about cops patroling the place i’ve had at lest 4 times i thought for sure i was going to jail. jail is a for real possibility and risk your taking. even being around the outside of the building at dark is grounds for tresspassing there. we have had a lot of experiences inside there. we heard stomps on stars noises from rooms, evps and even having our lights that were on the floor turn off and on when asking ?’s.and also had sat in a room with a camera recording sitting on a solid n firm concert floor and no one moving or even standing for close to a half hr. when we got home and reviewed the footage on it, the camera had moved over a inch during the time it was sitting there instead of facing the wall where we placed it to be filming, it had slowely moved and turned toward the door.We were capturing so much that we felt like we needed to return and we went back for 4 nights straight and for the most part of the night. ive had peope ask me to take them and once in for a few mins they are so scared and flip out and try to get out not knowing the way and its like they try to run from the fear they feel but make it even worse. Anyone considering attempting going in please make sure you think it through and are confident you can handle it. and the risk of jail. it can be overwhelming to some seeing cells, n solitary cells with wooden doors to hide there window and little doors on the doors that open to observe the patients that were in those type. the light switches on the outside of the rooms. my roommate has all the evp recordings saved on her laptop and i have tons of pics. if u can get passed being scared the place is like a castle or something. but be safe and cops will try to catch you.

Hi bro can you send me the vedio please….

Oh man that would be so fun to explore that 🙂

my grandpa used to work here after he served in the army

There is a way to get inside of the asylum. There is a wooden door with a broken lock. I don’t recommend it. I’ve been inside multiple times. However, once come sundown I experienced something paranormal. I had photos from 1963 of various types of fungus fly into me from a mysterious gust of wind inside of the complex. There was no wind outside, or airflow in the complex, the photos came from a corridor that had no windows near. Being an engineer, I can’t come up with a logical explanation as to what happened from a physics standpoint. I kept and still have the photos. I never believed in anything paranormal until this happened, and it kind of shattered my reality.

could i see the pictures perhaps??

I walked the outside of the building today, came across the door you’re talking about, somewhere by the a/d corner. The deadbolt is visible as the door jam is broken. Tried it and it seems to be secured from the inside somehow. Wasn’t too bothered, just being there and seeing the cemetery was enough.

Can you give me more information and send me some photos please??…………

……………………………

When is the best time to try to get into here to explore? Obviously with the least amount of risk of running into the cops.

I conducted my psychology rotation from 1987 to 1990 at The Ridges/Athens Mental Hospital. I remember taking the stairs down to, and walking the long tunnel area in the basement (each time I visited the site), that connected the main building with the hospital ward. In the basement, I’ll never forget walking past a series of concrete cells, with metal bars and fixed metal rings to chain someone or something to. The hospital/OU psych staff, and all of the patients that I built a rapport with, were all first rate individuals.

my son recently took a series of pictures in this place. One of the pictures shows a dark figure in the hallway on the first floor. It is really creepy and I think is one of the better “ghost” pics out there. I will attempt to post it on this site.

is anyone allowed to explore the cemetery i am very interested in this

I know it’s illegal to go in but my husband and I are willing to take a chance, does anyone know the best place to get in?

You really just have to look around. I am a student at OU and I’ve been in a couple of times. You may have to walk around a few times to find it. In the back of it by garages/loading docks theres a door hidden by trees and bushes against the back right. The door is open there and you can get to any level through that door, including the basement. Good luck and don’t get lost! 😉

Ryan, You are just letting everyone in lol. You know these are public sites and The police can read this and close that off for everyone….That is not cool bro! Way not cool! -Ajay

so i kno thast going into the buildings is illegal and you will be aressted but how strick are officers about the trails paths and roads?

I Lived on Dairy Lane for a short period in the early seventies. The dog almost had a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t behave and whined constantly. I never connected it to the hospital.

I’m writing a paper on the history of The Ridges. I found a lot of neat information from numerous websites however i need more! If anyone could give me some background info or even share some experiences you or a friend has had or a story you’ve been told that would be awesome! Thank you!

Many people were tortured and died there but I think all the story’s are maid up. I found a verry old video of the place and a man who worked there said all the story’s were bogus. The outline on floor is there tho. I see many people wanna sneek in and go at night I strongly suggest u not because oupd and Athens pd will arrest u for trhsspassing. I’ve been there n done that. They will lie or do whatever they gotta do to file charges if ur caught. I was steeling is what they said when I was seen there broke down at 3am. Even tho I had no property in my car I was a theif. Lol. Police these days are rediculous

can any of this be bought and the plans for the original buildings that were torn down i really want to live in this place

Does anyone know how old Margaret Schilling was when she was admitted to Athens very important homework….? please anyone…

I read that the TB ward was torn down because it was full of asbestos and it was just not economically viable to restore or use.

My great grandmother was a nurse here when the women went missing and her body found. Yes the story is true! Now wether she haunts it or not is up to you if you believe or not!

Found the video I know it does not have the best quality https://youtube.com/watch?v=3m3f-mjTJAk&list=LLOObIsNDpl26Y5CZ_27iDOw at the end of the video you can hear some spirits talking.

ill post it on later if anyone wants to watch it

i found a video on youtube that someone posted that you can actually hear some spirits talking ill have to find it again if i remember correctly it should be in my liked video or playlist folder.

I have been inside the main building. (The one no one is supposed to be in) It was very cool to see the history in it. The patient rooms were so small and all the paint was peeling away. I took some pictures and on one of the videos I spotted a weird light but I am not a believer in the supernatural. I love history and I got to see the oldest wing of the facility (I did it legally too). I happened upon the chance to see the facility while doing some work on campus.

how dare you not believe in ghosts lol

I remember reading in a Haunted Ohio book, a few years ago, that the Ridges Insane Asylum was built on an old Indian Orphanage. As I recall, the children had been horribly abused and there were many unexplained deaths in the orphanage. The home was closed & torn down. Does anyone remember this story ? Any truth to it ? Or am I remembering a different Ohio institution ?

This place sounds really interesting I been there a few times and even help build a part of the ridges… Can anyone post pictures u have of it if u caught anything and it truly sucks u can’t walk through it.. I want to so bad.. Does anyone know where I can find the death records for the place??? Thanks a lot and I love reading what u guys have commented..:)

There are a lot of stories associated with the Ridges. The main buildings are now used for offices and the like (including the SBA). But the biggest building, the Main building itself is now an art museum with a cafe. My friend and I decided to have a looksie through the art museum. While it was a neat cultural experience, we didn’t stay long. The further towards the back of the building we got, the harder it was to breath.There was just a really intense pressure on your chest. As soon as we left, the feeling lifted.

I was saddened that they razed the TB ward. There was a petition prior to save it, but I think we only had a couple hundred names on it.

Thanks for posting my YouTube video. That was from my visit to the TB Ward in 2008. There is absolutely nothing left of the building unfortunately. Everything else is still standing. They even have a cafe in the main lobby now. I am so glad that I was able to get into the main buildings back in 2002-03 as well. Very cool inside.

Thank you for documenting your experience in the building and sharing it with everyone. It gives others who never had the opportunity to visit the TB Ward a glimpse back into a piece of history that’s now forever gone.

hi my name is brian Osborn I had a great grandmother that was a patient way back when lol….. and I was wondering if I could get some information on this place please and also I took a trip to the asylum with my mother and I walked up a flight of stairs on the out side of the building and looked in when I seen one of the wheel chairs move and also heard some noises come from inside of the building so if you can I would like to talk to you and see If I can get some of the history on the place it has a lot of meaning to me and my family because of my great grandmother being in there thank you for your time……..

Was in Athens in 1999 with husband checking out campus/ college for oldest son and stopped to eat at restaurant down below front of building. As we left to go to car,we decided to walk closer to building,so strolled around it, As we approached,thought we saw disheveled, middle aged woman in window on second floor looking out. Did not find out until much later,what the building was,and it’s history. Had eerie feel to it.

Good pictures i heard à lot of horror stories avoir that place glad psyc medicine has advanced!

Are the doors unlocked? And is it illegal to go in there? Also, has anyone experienced any paranormal things while at the ridges?

Yea it’s eligal. Athens pd are pricks to. I don’t recommend going.

http://hauntedathensohio.com/the-ridges-mental-health-institution/?replytocom=2064#respond

Is it illegal to go in there at night? And are the doors locked?

RIP TB Ward…..

Do you know of anything still open I can walk thru the cemetary or anything? I will be visiting there soon and would like to explore I love paranormal…. Thank you!!

Is the insane asylum still standing or is that what they tore down??

What a sad day when they tore down the tuberculosis ward. That truly saddens a lot of people and it’s a shame that it happened. You’d think having a couple rent a cops patrol there a little more frequently would have been a better solution then to tear down such a historical building that had so much presence and history in the area.

Why did they tear it down? I just found out about this site today and am so curious. If i was able to do all the walking i would so love to sneak around and see what i might find. lol Too bad someone wouldn’t buy this old place and turn it into apartments. Tamrisa

There are offices in there now so I don’t recommend breaking in……and last I heard they stopped doing the tours on Halloween:( I’ve been there and to all the cemeteries numerous times and didn’t see anything

been in there through most of the old buildings myself. spent most of the night there.

I’ve been all over that building. You do not need authority to do so, the facility is huge and the chances of getting caught are almost zero. I have personally taken over 20 groups up and through the facility with no problem.

Growing up in Athens, as a rite of passage, one has to at least have explored the entire place at night by the age of 18. If you are in College, take time in the evening to check the place out. OUPD is understaffed and more so, they are not going to file serious charges against their own students. Trust me, they want your money. It isn’t in their interest to expel you over something so little. If caught, you’d merely get a slap on the wrist; Play dumb, bring a leash, say you are looking for your dog.

A particular interest of mine, (more than the stain) is a Mozaic Swastika on the floor, in one of the larger rooms. Also, there is a network of underground tunnels connecting the old buildings at OU; some even at the ridges. Do yourself a favour, buy a respirator and go have some fun.

I’d really be interested in seeing the place, but I have no idea how to get inside. I stopped by today, and I didn’t see an entrance that wasn’t boarded up. When do people hang out there, and what’s the best way to get in? Also what’s the best way to avoid the OUPD? They were hanging out there this afternoon.

I’d appreciate any advice – thanks!

Don’t attempt to avoid them because they patrol that place 24/7. They are ass holes to. I was arrested for being there one earley morning they tried to say I was a theif and was steeling. Go during the day not at night

Believe me Athens pd has a abundant amount of officers and they will press charges. I went there at 3 am as a result of a overheating car and was approached by a Athens pd officer and was told I was steeling. I was took to jail and received a ticket for driving under suspention. They are ass holes.

Are you still giving tours? I’d love to see this place!

athenshistory.org/asylum-walking-tour

are there any halloween haunts in the area and can you visit the asylum or the ridges at night around october. looking for halloween scary things to do and see in Athens any info would be appreciated

This can be found @ athensohio.com…. “Please note that the only former state hospital building open to the public is the Kennedy Museum. Photos of the asylum are often on view here. No tours or other access is offered to the public.”

my grandmother worked here and she now nearing 90 yrs old. She has told me stories of things that went on at the ridges and told me there was always an odd feeling to the place. many patients died there due to treatments gone wrong! She worked the electroshock therapy section and said that screams were heard all through the night. Weather they were screams of the patients or from those beyond the grave she couldn’t say. I grew up in Athens Ohio and use to try to seek into the property of the Ridges every Halloween as many locals do. LOL we always got scared and left before seeing or hearing much.

Hi,my name is Mike miller,my Grandfather was a patient there and went through the shock treatments. He cummited sluiced there. If u could please give me a call at #740-703-1533 thanks. My email is messed up rite now.

we did Romeo and Juliet with the school of theatre there in 1978,, when it was still in use, we got to explore it at night, got caught by security trying to get into this chained up building at the top….did you also know that Billy Milligan was treated up there…. go read ” The Minds of Billy Milligan” by Daniel Keyes I believe.. he was teaching there at the time

My dad used to work there and he told me stories of Billy Milligan, one of the patients on his rounds. He said he was a very likable guy and fascinating to talk to, but he suffered from multiple personality disorder, and you never knew which personality you would get and some of them were not very nice and he could be dangerous at times.

I did my psych rotation at the Athens Hospital The Ridges…we were the last class there before they closed it completely and moved to the new facility across the river. It was very interesting and we got to take a tour of the closed parts of the buidings. I got to see the body outline on the floor. Very interesting place to say the least.

I’d have to agree that eeire is a great way to describe the feeling when on the grounds at The Ridges. Every time that I’ve been there it feels like I’m being watched from the windows in all of the buildings.

don’t have it anymore but my xstep mom had someone take a photo of her standing in front of the ridges there was a ghost in the window behind her yeah fun

Once performed a concert in this facility with the Community Band. Was an eerie experience.

Ive been wanting to explore this place for a while now does anyone know the exact address?

Leah, you can find it here…. To The Ridges: From US 33, take the SR 682/Ohio University Exit. Turn left onto Richland Avenue. Take the first right onto Dairy Barn Lane, then turn right into The Ridges.

I agree, is there a fee of sorts of a team of investigators to have an over night investigation?

This can be found @ athensohio.com…. “Please note that the only former state hospital building open to the public is the Kennedy Museum. Photos of the asylum are often on view here. No tours or other access is offered to the public.”

Tours are available at Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV. It’s worth every nickel. Would LOVE to tour this one.

Hi, I just wanted to know if overnight investigationd are allowed on the property and if so how much are they? thanks, Jim

There are historical walking tours of the entire grounds outside (about a two hour tour) given by the Southeast Ohio History Center on the third Sunday of each month with extra tours given during Halloween and Brew Fest season. For more information go you athenshistory.org.

Ohio University has never allowed overnight investigations. Several well know paranormal investigation groups have tried and been denied.

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Athens Mental Health Center Collections

The Athens Mental Health Center was a mental health institution operational in Athens, Ohio from 1874 until 1993. Originally called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, it has also been known as the Athens Hospital for the Insane, Athens Asylum for the Insane, the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center.

The Ohio University Libraries holds a range of collections and resources relating to the Athens Mental Health Center and its history.

Manuscript Collections

Athens Mental Health Center Records , 1874-1976 (MSS 263)

The Athens Mental Health Center records span from 1874 to 1976 and document the activities of this hospital. The records include patient Inquest of Lunacy records (only from 1874-1911), employee records, payroll packets and disbursement journals; audit reports from the Ohio Department of Mental Health; photographs; and administrative office files including annual reports, newsletters, correspondence, training manuals and financial statements. Some parts of this collection are restricted by Ohio state law. More information on accessing patient records can be found on our  Athens Mental Health Center Policies page .

Auxiliary of the Athens Mental Health Center Records , 1955-1983 (MSS43)

This relatively small collection provides an incomplete record of the activities and membership of the Auxiliary of the Athens Mental Health Center for the period 1955 through it dissolution in 1983. The records are organized into the following series: Series I: Auxiliary Organization Records, Series II: Financial Records, Series III: Special Projects and Publicity, Series IV: Executive Board Records, and Series V: Correspondence.

Collection on The Ridges , 1988-1991 (MSS264)

The collection on The Ridges spans from 1988 to 1991 and documents Ohio University’s actions to acquire and use the land and buildings that formerly housed the mental health center. The records include the advisory committee meeting minutes, notes, reports and research; research papers on the history of The Ridges; blueprints; newspaper clippings; use and development proposals; and guidelines for planning The Ridges.

Digitized Athens Mental Health Center Collections

Additional Information

The 1900: Voices from the Athens Asylum .  DVD.  Produced by WOUB Center for Public Media.  Athens, OH, 2013.

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Psychiatric Hospital of Attica (Dafni)

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