The girlfriend and I were looking for stuff to do Sunday, so we swung by the state forest just up the road to check out the leaves and whatnot. Pretty cool little forest. It's a fire controlled area by the GA forestry commission, so it's interesting to walk around in. The trails are pretty poorly maintained, but there's lots of service roads to walk on. Saw a couple deer last time I was here Then we headed to our little town's claim to fame, an abandoned and decaying insane asylum. It's called Central State, and was opened in the 1840s I believe. It finally shut down all operations in 2010. The department of justice used a couple buildings to house inmates, but as far as I know they've ceased using the buildings now as well. It used to be the largest asylum in the world, and still is the largest in the US. I think it's somewhere around 1700-2000 acres and has ~200 buildings on the campus. You aren't allowed in any of the buildings since most have been abandoned for decades and they're in pretty bad condition, but you can drive the roads around the campus. Pretty creepy place. Supposedly there are 30,000 unmarked graves on the property from maintenance men moving the markers in the 60s to mow easier Anyways, here's some pics. Sorry about being long-winded, it's just a neat place. Creepy too I thought this was especially creepy. Central state biohazard box in the middle of the road... There are some interior pics of the buildings on the web from more adventurous souls than I
Looks as though the FHC has a perfect place to set up clinics now... for all of the CAD sufferers. And, it's vacant! Thx for the pix. Interesting place.
Wouldn't surprise me. Although, if you look at the hospital's history, there's not any gruesome events that caused it to shutdown. It kinda just ceased operations. I haven't been able to dig up any horror stories or the like. Creepiest thing is just the unmarked graves. And the cemeteries that are left only have copper placards with numbers on them as headstones...
The poppers field is the same here in Mass. It's a similar cemetery owned by the state to bury indigent inmates who had no families. Rows and rows of simple number marked graves.
Went beck today. I heard that the grounds were damaged by the bad weather we got his morning. Didnt see any dmage, but did get more pics! Heres one of the graveyard memorials. There aren't actually people buried under these particular markers. These are the ones that were tossed in the woods back in the day. A small group recovered them and created this memorial. There were some VERY old gravestones scattered through the woods around this area though. Lots of 1890s dates Some more creepy decrepit buildings Saw lots more of the grounds today. A lot of the buildings on the outskirts were turned into state prisons. The last pic is one of them. They're all shutdown now
Cool stuff, all that history is stuff I like. We have some of the same here, the old mental hospitals that have been used and abandoned and just sit there.
Yep, the history of it all is really interesting. Its a strange feeling to be in the middle of something that was largely abandoned decades ago. Whats even more strange are all of the small buildings that still seem to get used. Theres even a county fire station in the middle of the campus. Bet the firefighters dont like getting assigned to that station
Some great pictures! That forested area is beautiful. Then looking at some of the old pictures, there were some beautiful buildings. It is really a shame they let them all go downhill. They should have been used for something else. Once abandoned, they deteriorate quickly. Michigan too had some places like that albeit on a smaller scale. Most of them got closed down about 35-40 years ago.
A lot of the buildings are nice looking, and I'm sure were even better looking back in the day. In it's heyday this place was state of the art. I read somewhere that almost 1/4 of the buildings are considered behind repair. It's sad, as they're beautiful old buildings. There's only 2 operational buildings left there, and one is closing as soon as the patients can be found new treatment locations The state has started a commission to revive the area. We drove by an old building being torn down to build a new nursing home. That was the first sale of a piece of the grounds to a private business since the place opened in 1842 . As far as I know, some effort is being made to preserve some of the nicer buildings like the big white one in the OP (that's where the revival commission offices are), as well as the one with the stairs in front in the OP. There's a huge auditorium they want to keep as well. Other than that though, I read some talk of letting developers have buildings for free if they promised to tear them down and rebuild. I guess it's good though that this area goes to some use. It's doing nothing now, other than falling farther into disrepair Sorry for rambling on, this place is just real interesting to me
That part about letting developers have with a promise is actually quite common. Around here it has been done several times with old school buildings. We have one in our township but it appears the developer has run short of cash so nothing being done. It will no doubt revert back to the township.
Interesting, I hadn't ever heard of that. I think the problem here is "re branding" the area. Who wants to be one of the first developers in a 2000 acre abandoned insane asylum accessible only by creepy, over grown, rundown one lane roads?
