My experiences at this location had a very profound impact on me. This particular building dates back to the 1920s and has been used for many things and many types of patients over the years. Most notably, it housed dangerous criminals, geriatric patients and the "feeble minded." It reached its peak of occupation during the 1950s and 1960s, with rumors of as many as 300 patients inhabiting a single ward area.
This hospital has a particularly notorious reputation for mistreatment of patients, unjust use of restraints and extensive isolation, medical malpractice, and eugenics (forced sterilization), just to name a few. Success rates were abysmally low and mortality rates were high. It was run by an organization that has changed names many times throughout its operational years, which makes researching it a bit tricky.
Until recently, I was not aware of the perceived epidemic of the feeble minded and the attempts made by the mental health community to control and contain this population. Eugenics/forced sterilization became a very popular practice, with the general justification that it prevented the reproductive spreading of what would only become a burden to society. Many times this was done as a condition of release from the facility or without consent from the patients. So who were these people that were deemed "feeble?" Statistically, African Americans and women were the two groups who were targeted the most frequently. Qualifying diagnoses ranged from mental retardation, epilepsy, alcoholism, manic depression, autism, promiscuity, sex perversion, and a whole range of other afflictions that could easily be deemed as behavioral or subjective.
The things I saw during my explores here changed my life. I walked the halls of a real life horror movie set. The rooms were rife with traces of the children and patients who inhabited its walls. Charts and files were strewn across floors. Drawings, books, clothing and lace-less shoes of all types and sizes mingled with the decay of a location that had been condemned and sealed for more than 20 years. Isolation chambers with tiny chairs lined the darkest corners of the basement, and I suspect that no one smiled in the "Smile Room."
These are just a few of the things I saw that day. It was compelling enough for me to go back and see other portions of the location, but I will post those pictures later. Horror is a very real thing, and sometimes the scariest monsters lie within plain site or within each of us.
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