Oooo. There's something a bit unnerving and upsetting about this picture. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about how that clock was working one minute and stopped the next. Life and death? Not sure.

Hah! Hah! Mis. America! That's funny!

I think our toilets need a warnning on them, especially after some members of our household get finished using them. Some of that caution tape, some crime sceen tape and one or two of those bio hazard, signs. LOL

It was the koolaide man LOL! That thing gave me nightmares when I was a kid, kept dreaming that big pichers of talking koolaide came crashing through my bedroom wall.

As for who pays the bill? Maybe the city? Or whoever is in charge of the working part of the hospital? Surely running a few lights doesn't bring up red flags, so the charges probily just get overlooked and paid without much thought?

Kind of makes me think of "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile"

...And you couldn't pay me to go and see what that wonder crud is, or rather was, because it's most likely gone now along with that sink thing and that room and that building and that hospital.

Ewwww! It looks like it was used as a toilet and somebody duked in it! Nas-tay! Although, in all reality it was just some sort of sink thing and that... Whatever it is, wonder crud, isn't a big duke more likely rust, standing water, dirt, something like that.

Oh wow! Haven't gone through the comments yet, and if somebody has already said it, sorry. But. What a crap hole! Looks like the whole damned place is going to tip over at any moment, just decay everywhere. Gawd.

Unless you're hittler, or somebody evil like that, why in the world would you want to put barbbed wire in too the head of somebody just because they were disabled? I cannot see the value in this, and true some testing was done on state school children and other disabled people who lived in places such as this I'm thinking here of the tests done in the mid part of the 1900 the thing with the radation? State Boys Rebellion, all that but I really find it hard to beleive they would do such, the only word that comes to mind is natziesc sorts of prosedures. such as barbed wire inside the skull, odds and ends in someone's chest, and such like that. But what do I know? Maybe they did. I hope this isn't the truth... but if it is. God help us, God help us all and forgive us...

Oh, the soap. We either got that nasty mintyish smelling liquid or that sickly pink stuff that smelled like a cross between the lady's room at church and old lady... YUCK!

They did something very much like that in the younger girls' department at the state school for the blind when I was there. We were three or four girls to one large room. We each had a desk, chair, twin bed and a chest of drawrs oh and a closet.

On each drawr in the chest of drawrs there was, on the out side of each drawr, masking tape with the name of that drawr's contense. So you'd have one that said "Toiletries" and one that said "Socks and undergarmets" and one for pants or shorts or whatever.

Now, you might be asking yourself, if this was in a school for blind children, why the print? This was, I'm guessing, for the bennifit of the overnight staff who had to help some of us get ready in the morning... And for any dorm staff, if they had to find something for us. Either they changed things or when you got to be an older girl I don't remmber but I do know that the older girls, teens, ect. didn't have this, only the little kids.

It is interesting to think that the sun you see in this photo is the same sun that has shown down on well the whole world for ever and ever. I mean when this place was used as a war time building, the people who lived/worked there saw the same sun that the school children and staff saw and it is the same sun we see today. Kind of timeless, right?

Well that didn't post right. What I meant to say is the larger part of our hall bathroom is painted a shade of blue just a bit darker than this door and isn't at all depressing, in fact it is calming. The smaller section of our bathroom, the W/C with the tub and toilet is painted white with that god awful gold tile from the 70s and is drab and depressing more so than the blue, larger room in our bathroom

Part of our hall bathroom, the larger room with the sink and counter and closet is painted a lovely shade of blue a bit darker than this, it isn't at all depressing rather it is c.Ww, the smaller room holding the tub and toilet is white with 70s god tile and I think is more depressing and blah then th blue section of our bathroom.

Yummmmmmmm, paint chips with a nice mold dip... Anyone want a late night snack?

Wow, very interesting, the reason behind the curved hallway... I'd of never thought of the curve as a mesure to prevent beds being placed in the hall.

Don't ya just hate dry, cracked and flakey lips? Looks like those lips could really use some carmex or something.

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. That color on the walls, that sickly minty greenie yellow? That color reminds me of the hand soap they had at the school for the blind here in KC it was this weird liquid stuff and it was either green or pink. Yuck. Anyway, was this like the intended color of the walls or is that some major molde going on there? Maybe as this room is next to the lab with all the TB cultures, the cultures have gotten free and now live on the wall? J/K

Wow. That's. Well? That's something.
I really don't know what to say. That is the kind of picture you've got to sit with for a while...
I wonder who was the person to last sleep in that bed prior to the building/hospital emptying out? It's funny really. One morning somebody got up out of that bed and then... That was the end, they never came back, so there the bed has sat for years and years and years.

Sorry, my above comment seems to of posted in error. So hopefully here is the whole comment.

I first started to poke round this site in August (07) due to my discovery of Pennhurst. I was looking for any accessable information on that school as it is I am unable to read the wealth of information at Elpeecho's site. I am blind, well and the computer screen access program I use doesn't read PDF files to well so I was trying to find anything I could...

I love this place! Some of the pictures are very hard to see, but reading all the comments provide, in most cases, enough information to get something from each pic.

I've looked through several gallerys of photos and read hundreds of comments and I'd like to make a few points, things that have come up in my mind...

1. It's rather funny, if you think about it. When these places were up and running people would not want to go there if it were the last place on earth, or if they were there a bunch of people would give their right arm to get out, as is shown in "Suffer the little Children." The reporter asked several people if they liked it there or would they go home if they could. One man said that would be his most loved wish.

Now, it would seem we have the reverse. Now that these buildings are falling away to rot and rewin you've got to have security to eject people from the buildings.


2. I don't know how exactly to put this. But, maybe the reason so many peoplego in there is because they've heard all kinds of horror stories, some totally B.S., some with a spot of truth and others that are true all the way... And with the way the buildings look now, all broke down and falling apart, they think this is how it has always been and it fules their fire as it were.

3. I'm not sure if I can get behind all this haunted house type stuff. Maybe there is something to it, maybe not. But to my way of thinking, if you go in expecting ghosts then that's what you'll get. Or think you'll get. If you go looking for tormented lost souls of people who lived or died here, then that loud thud you heard must be a ghost, surely it couldn't be... say... a light falling down from the seeling because it finally broke free due to the seeling weakening over time.

and finaly, 3. There is a gallery on here of a girls' school, not some sort of training school for handicapped girls, but something like a finishing school or something. The buildings in the pictures there look just as broke down as the pictures of the state schools. But here is something interesting... People don't say about the girls' school. "Oh those poor lost souls it must of been awful living there and so on..." They say nice building, like the lighting stuff like that.

I wonder if they'd say the same sort of stuff if they were presented with a set of photos from a state school and photos from a girls' school without being told what is what?


Yes, I can understand that the state schools, asylums were over crowded and yes, I know lots of bad things happen. It is unavoidable... When you have so many people crammed together like that and not a whole lot of staff, things are gonna get kinda bad. It's like this in some of the state schools for the blind. I myself have seen it and have friends who attended the state schools for the blind and they've seen it, hell even been on the receiving end of things. Articles have been published regarding the poor conditions of the state schools. So I know it happens.

See the may94 issue of the braille monitor on the national federation of the blind's website www . nfb . org in their braille monitor archive. Also check out the article called "Flaorida school for the deaf and blind not a safe place for children" also located in the archives of the braille monitor. That article tells about the scolding death of a 9 year old girl, Jennifer Driggers...




Sorry, have totally lost my thoughts, my 14 month old daughter just crawled in here and into the laundry basket. LOL but I think I've made the points I set out to make...

Lynn,

Very good point about the high costs that come with any funeral and or grave stone.
My 19-year-old sister died very very unexpectedly in July '07 and her funeral service was several thousand dollars. My folks are only just now able to order her grave stone nearly half a year later and this too is very expensive. And these are, for lack of a better word, normal people in the way that they live in the community and both my folks have good jobs as an RN for a number of doctor offices my mom and a finance annelist for a well known aircraft factory, my dad. Despite this, I'm very very sure having to come up with thousands of dollars to see my sister decently into the ground put quite a crunch on their wallets nevermind the soul crushing loss of their youngest at such an early age... So it shouldn't really be a shock to see how the state, it doesn't matter what state, they all are quite underfunded when it comes to the support and care of their dependent wards, inmates in the state pen, unemployed people, low-income families, and the disabled/mentally ill just to name a few. Treats those who have died while within the walls of state run places such as this.

Sorry if this has already been pointed out...

On the subject of sunken graves-- Several years ago I read two very interesting books called "Death to Dust: What happens to dead bodies?" by Kenneth V. Iserson and "The American Way of Death" by Jessica Mitford. Both books touch, breeflyy in the book by Ms. Mitford and in painfully vivid detail in the case of Mr. Iserson as to the reason for graves sooner or later, getting that sunken in look.

Over time, even in the case where a body has been embalmed the body and coffen will decompose. As this happens the ground above presses down and sooner or later the coffen will give way and fall in. I'm fairly sure that this is the reason that some, but by no means all cemetaries now use a strong concreet grave volt. More or less a big sterdy box to put the box that holds the remains of your loved one. A box within a box. The valt can withstand the weight of the earth atop it and thus should not cave in. Or if it does, perhaps it will not cave in so much. It makes the groundskeeping less of a pain. Same reason too that you are seeing more and more grave markers that lay flush with the ground, rather then the rounded topped grave stones of yesterday. In fact, don't hold me to this, but I think someplace or other I read that many new cemateries will not allow anything other than a marker flush with the grounds, citing ease of upkeep as the reason.

I do not know, however why a grave would hump up. The only things I could come up with is-- (choose one of the following) A: as the person's body decomposes gas being released as a part of the process of decomposition builds up and causes an upword shift in the already loosened dirt. or B. A shift in the techtonic plates in the earth causes any number of lumps and bumps that previously had not been there. Grave yards as far as the earth and her plates go are no different than any other place so it is just as likely to gain a lump or two over the years... Or 3. Some creature who travels via tunneling along under the ground causes the humps to form as a result of its' digging.

Then again, maybe not.

"In this year [1913] also a crematory was put into use on the hospital grounds and all burials in the Asylum Cemetery were disinterred and cremated."

Oh my God!

Did I read that right?! You mean to tell me they dug up people just so they could cremate them? What ever in the world for? It wasn't like they were bothering anybody. They're dead! What are they going to do? Clamber up from out of their graves and get up to no good?

This is just awful. And sad. God awful sad. It wasn't bad enough that most likely a very large percent of these people, if not all of them, had no peace when they were alive, being tormented by mental illness and for some at least being locked away and forgotten by their family. Oh no, they don't even get peace once they're dead, what with being dug up and all. Just awful, makes you wonder if perhaps the wrong people were put away? Surely there must be something a bit off about whoever it was that said, dig all the grave yard up and dispose of the dead, as if they were nothing more than a pile of fall leaves being burnned in a bonfire.

Also, just think... Who came to the graveside to pay their last respects? I'm pretty sure there were no flowers, there were no songs, no words of comfort to greaving family members, hell no family members in some cases, just a grounds keeper? Trustee inmate who was in charge of the disposal of those who had the piss poor luck to die in the state hospital? I know that it wasn't as bleak a picture as I see here in some cases, but then again, it must of been just as bad for some.

"This is not an Exit"
--Brett Easton Ellis "American Psycho"

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"
--unknown

Don't you just hate those hard to clean rust stains?

If I were the betting type I'd put my money on this being a shot of the inside of the door. And here is the reason(s) why. First thing I noticed is that this door and more to the point this window set in the door look very much like the door/window combo in the earlier shot, "Room 359" I think it was called? In that picture you could see a room number and in this picture above the door there is no room nunber, or one that we can see. Also, if the marks left were caused by a cup or other circular object being bangged aginst the door it might stand to reason that one would be pounding away trying to get out, not to get in...