Comments on: An Abandoned Hospital and its Abandoned Inhabitants

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:49:49 +0000

I live in Massachusetts which is the land of the abandoned asylum and I’ve had the opportunity to photograph 13 of these amazing buildings. The stories behind the facades are heartwrenching and intriguing and it’s great to see them gaining more mainstream attention. Wonderfully done!

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:47:22 +0000

I live in Massachusetts which is the land of the abandoned asylum and I’ve had the opportunity now to photograph 13 of these amazing buildings. I can’t wait to travel out west to see more and I really enjoyed reading this piece. Wonderfully done!

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:04:08 +0000

Holy crap, what an amazing article!

By: Melody

Melody — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:19:20 +0000

My grandparents, aunt and stepfather all worked at the hospital at some point. Growing up near it, I was always fascinated with the building and the people inside of it, I imagine it is filled with ghosts, memories of those that lived there without love or hope. These photos are moving and haunting all at once. Thank you to the artist for sharing these images.

By: Steph

Steph — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:24:53 +0000

There were two journalists from The Oregonian who wrote a series about the place, called “Oregon’s Forgotten Hospital.” In 2006, it won them a Pulitzer Prize. Their descriptions of the hospital are really haunting. And on The Oregonian’s site, there’s also a slideshow of hospital pictures. Click on my name for the link.

By: Amy D

Amy D — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:11:53 +0000

I don’t think it’s sad, I think it’s amazing. Amazing that even in death, people are still individuals. I would bet that all those copper canisters, which were once all the same, now all look different. The way that each individual’s cremated remains reacted with the copper is unique. Yes, it is tragic that these people died without having people who care about them, and are now nameless, but they have asserted their independence in a fantastic way.

By: Judy

Judy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:04:57 +0000

We had Stockton State Hospital here, and many of the patients were sterilized. They were still doing it into the 1960s. The unclaimed dead were buried in a “Potter’s Field”, the graves marked with numbers. Walking through that area of the cemetery is very disconcerting as one often sees bones protruding from the gravesites.

By: tej

tej — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:41:01 +0000

Another fantastically fascinating article from Ransom. They’re always my favorites.

By: Soutnern Buddhist

Soutnern Buddhist — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:37:32 +0000

Staunton, Virginia has its own version of this — TWO versions, in fact. The Western State Lunatic Asylum has been in Staunton since 1828. The first buildings were designed by Thomas Jefferson’s architect and are stunning, with fan lights, domes, rotundas, etc., and all in a beautiful setting with willow trees, a babbling brook, and artfully placed boulders (back when “lunatic asylums” were not unlike the spas of today, places for a temporary retreat). The complex sat empty for years, but is now being saved and rehabbed into condos. When the lunatics left that campus (it became a prison before the condo renovation), they went to the DeJarnette Buildings (named for the guy who forcibly sterilized Virginia’s insane and “feeble” population in the name of eugenics). Those are very spooky and Gothic-looking and sit abandoned and forbidding at the top of a hill overlooking the town. The older complex boasts a cemetery of hundreds of patients. Nearly all of the graves are marked with stones, but because of privacy laws, the stones are completely blank. It’s haunting and thought-provoking — a sea of nameless graves.

By: adrienne

adrienne — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:48:53 +0000

The first pic gave me flashbacks of Saw II, but those urn pics are beautiful. Isn’t chemistry amazing? Sad about the patients being unclaimed, though. What a nice way to commemorate them.