"Rubber duckie, you're the one, you make bathtime lots of fun...." oh sorry, didn't realize you all were in here too.

Residents who were sent to Western Center were sent there because there was no other place to take them. They were not able to be rehabilitated. This was the last stop. If I'm not mistaken, the residents were sterilized after being admitted to prevent pregnancy. Most of these people would not have been likely to carry a viable baby to full term due to their medical conditions anyway.

Yes, that is Southpointe in the background, most likely part of the office complex. As far as the rolling country---welcome to western Pennsylvania.

I think this was one of the rooms where families would visit with the residents. When you went there, you signed in and a worker would go get the person you were visiting and wheel them out for your visit. Unless the resident had specific restrictions, you could wheel them outside around on the grounds while you visited with them.

Welcome to the office of Sweeney Todd!

I think Claudia is right about this one. From the mid 1960's until it closed in 2000, this was an institution primarily for people with severe mental retardation. My aunt was a resident at Western Center for several years until she passed away there from complications due to her condition in 1984. I remember visiting her with my family in the summers when I was a little kid. It was so sad to see all those people there in the condition they were in. But my aunt was always cheered up when my Grandma would visit. Despite having the mental abilities of a 1-1/2 year old, a vocabulary of 2 words, and being legally blind she was always happy to see her mom. One of the two words she ever knew all her life was "Mum". I think that speaks volumes about the strength of the bond between a mother and her children.

But this wash tub I think is elevated so a gurney can be wheeled right up beside it and the patient easily placed into it for bathing. I don't think this was the kind of hospital that perfomed operations, autopsies, and that sort of thing. It was more of a residential institution for the severly mentally handicapped.

Had to be made by one instrument. Looks like it was done with permanent markers rather than scratched in like with a fork. Like one of those instruments that would hold several pieces of chalk or several markers at one time used to draw lines on a chalkboard/marker board to write musical notes. Notice how the line on the outer curve of the letter "P" is wider than the others, as if the vandal put a little more pressure on that side of the marker instrument as they formed the curve of the letter "P".

You know her?

Do you happen to have any digital scans of those documents, Zach? I'd be very interested in seeing them.

I also can't forget to thank those who have prayed for my friend's mom. You may not even know it, but you've helped in some way to make life better for someone you don't know and probably have never met. Your kindness will certainly be rewarded in some way, so if some unexpected positive event happens to you sometime in the near future, know that it is more than just good fortune; you're being blessed. When you acknowledge your blessings, they continue! I hope you are greatly blessed for your kindness and thanks to all of you once again. :)

It's so sad to see these buildings are gone now. But there is some good news with my friend's mom. She is continuing to make some progress and her feeding tube should be removed any day now, if it hasn't been already because she can eat on her own now. She seems to have no cognitive damage to her brain from the tests that the doctors have done, just seems that it is mostly motor skills that were damaged by the stroke. She's able to say "yeah" in response to questions, but not much else yet. She has been laughing with friends and family when they visit her and is completely aware of everything around her. I hope to go with my friend to visit her sometime over the next few days.

Thank you for your concern. And no harm done. With all that was going on at the site that weekend, I can understand why people would be cautious. But we thank you for sharing the info that you did, it was helpful for our little quest that weekend.

Just a brief update on my friend's mom. She's been moved from the ICU in a Pittsburgh hospital to a rehabilitative nursing home in the suburbs. She's been stabilized for about 2 weeks now and is showing some signs of improvement. Her family has been very involved in her rehabilitation so far and we are all hoping for continued improvement. She can clearly understand when people communicate with her and she recognizes everyone, but with her being paralyzed over most of her body, she can do little communication back with us. Please continue to to pray for her, it is working! She's already doing a bit better than her doctors thought.

Well that would make sense. Too bad it was way too dark down there for us to explore the basement very much. Thanks Motts---and great work on the photos and the website as a whole!

If you're going to go up there, you better try to get permission first. The cops are being serious about people trespassing on the site and are now arresting people just for being there.

I thank you very much on behalf of her friends and family. I am informed that her condition has not changed much since she was taken to the hospital, but I know that stroke recovery can be a very long process. She's a very strong willed person, so I'm hoping that she will regain at least somewhat of a normal life.

I should add that my friend used Google Earth to explore the Dixmont site from satellite photography and she said it was pretty cool to see everything up there from that view.

No offense taken, Raymond. It's easy to over-generalize just about anything.

Anyone happen to know if there are any resources on the web that have a site map of the whole Dixmont complex? I think it would be really cool to see a visual representation of all the things that this facility was composed of. I know most info is focused on the Kirkbride, but the site was 407 acres in total and Reed Hall comprised only a fraction of one acre. There is so much to this site. There are also a lot of things that were part of the Dixmont complex that are on land that was not sold to WalMart and will still probably be there for quite some time even after the WalMart is built. It would be nice to know where some of this stuff is.

There should also be more on the cemetery. I've seen websites where people have been asking questions about it because they have loved ones buried there and they are concerned what will happen to the graves. I know the 1 acre cemetery still belongs to the State and won't be harmed by the construction, but these people have the right to more information about their relatives that are buried there.

I thank you for bothering to look it up. I've lived in the Pittsburgh area all my life and never heard of the official story on the spelling.

Can we start a "save the safe" campaign? This thing should be kept in a local museum or something. With all the new local history centers opening up mostly commemorating the steel mills, I think that one of the local museums could easily put together a very interesting permanent display dedicated to Dixmont. It was a place that was a national (and possibly international) pioneer in mental health treatment that revolutionized that medical discipline. I found a few websites with burial records for the Dixmont cemetery and there are people from several European countries buried there. This place had to be well known internationally in its' day and should be remembered as more than just the old crumbling building that used to be there before WalMart was built.

Yes I did, thank you. I was watching the videos they posted there and checking out some of the pic galleries. I really wish I had the chance to explore more of the property. This place really had to be something when it was in operable condition.

paexplorers: the site superintendant saw you as you guys went around the bend and told the cops. We kept the cops busy for a while talking to them about the history of the place, but after Mr. Asshat superintendant spotted you guys, they left us a few minutes later to go find you. It seems you were able to get away without being caught by Superintendant Asshat.

Now I think I understand how everything went down that day. I still want to know who alerted the superintendant that there were people on the site. I think we were there for about an hour and a half before he showed up.

I was there that day with a good friend of mine, her brother, and her mom. A few days after our trip to Dixmont, her mom had a massive stroke and is still in the hospital. She is paralyzed on one side of her body, cannot talk or eat, and can barely move. Her doctors have found a clot in her brain and aren't very optomistic that she will recover much. She is a wonderful person that I've known since I was a teenager, so if anyone reading this is a praying person, there are many of us who would very much appreciate a prayer for her recovery. She knew about Dixmont years ago and was the one who told us about it and how it was about to be torn down.

could you post a link to your webpage please?

Truckie, now I'm all confused. My friends and I were on the 2nd floor, I believe, when we saw a newer bright red Dodge pickup parked in front just down the driveway a bit from my Jeep and a guy by himself standing near the Dodge truck looking at the building. I don't recall exactly where the Terex was, there was more than one of them on the site that day I think. If that was you, I was assuming that you were a worker that was stationed at the site and you called your boss to report trespassers. I apologize for any false accusations made on my part.

Now I wonder who saw us and reported us? Of course, it was pretty stupid of me to park my Jeep right by the front door of the place, but I figured we wouldn't encounter any workers, being that it was a Sunday afternoon. Now I have to wonder who the other guy that I encountered in the cafeteria building was? He was walking around in the ballroom with a younger kid (about 16 I'd guess) and they were taking photos. We talked to him for a few minutes about the place and he seemed to be irritated that we were talking to him, so we left him alone after a while. We wondered back into Reed Hall and that is when I saw a policeman looking in my Jeep out in front. We went back out the back and walked around the building and back up to the front to see what was up. That's when we saw the two policemen and the superintendant. The superintenant seemed to be a bit of an asshat, but he never said anything to us. When he walked away to take a phone call, the cops really started to lighten up. I guess they had to look like they were doing something about people trespassing, so while the superintendant was listening, the cops were harder on us. BTW--the cops never called me or sent anything in the mail so I guess they dropped the whole thing. But when we were done talking to the cops, the guy and the kid we were talking to earlier came walking around the corner of the building and Mr. Asshat superintendant spotted them right away and told the cops there were more people and they went over to talk to them. I don't know what ever happened to those two because we got the hell out of there before we could get into any more trouble.

The tow truck driver was real cool with us. The cops told me that it was going to cost me $40 for the truck showing up and I had to pay the driver now or work something out with him. The driver told me to follow him down to a coin operated car wash down on Rt. 65 and just pay to have the mud washed off of his truck. Only cost me $2 so I was happy.

As for people going up there and screwing with the construction equipment, it is really stupid of the equipment operators to leave all the equipment unlocked. I work for a contractor and I had keys on me that day that would have operated most of the equipment on the site. We always lock our equipment if it is left on a jobsite unattended. Contractor keys will work in all equipment of the same equipment manufacturer, as you probably already know, so there are many keys floating around that will operate the equipment. I have a CAT key that would have started the CAT 330 behind Reed Hall with the claw on it. Looked like somebody already got into it and tore into Reed Hall in the back from a window on the 3rd story down to the window below it on the 2nd story. I know how to operate that machine because we have a 307B and 312BL that I have to run sometimes and the 330 is the same, just bigger. At least I have enough brains to know that it is extremely dangerous to just drive an excavator up to a 4 story building and try to tear it down. If a large section of the wall would have broke away, the cab of that machine would have been crushed, most likely killing the operator. It seems like that CAT machine with the claw attachment on it was there to pick up large trees to load them on trucks, not tear down 4 story buildings. Good God, that could get real ugly real quick.

Word to the wise: do not EVER go onto a construction site and mess with or attempt to mess with equipment/machines that you find there. You very well could get yourself or someone else nearby killed or seriously injured. Not to mention that many of these machines cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It might seem cool at the time, but it's not a lot of fun to lose control of a machine that weighs several times more than your house.

You can't say that about everyone. I'm 27, American, and I have a tremendous love and respect for history. It seems that many people tried very hard to save this site, but the courts ruled that outside parties have no say in the matter. I blame the judge who ruled on this case for this loss of history. He was probably bribed by city leadership so the WalMart could be built and the city/county make more cash through taxes.

I understand that the buildings are in irreparable condition and have become a public hazard, but as I stated before, I think something much better could be done with this site.

But anyway, could someone explain to this "moron" where the safe was or is located? It seems that I was too stupid to be able to find it in my 2 hr visit to Dixmont.

Wow. Didn't realize that pointing out an interesting fact would get me labeled a "moron". Quite a zealous fan club Lynne seems to have. And I never realized that I was somehow challenging Lynne by noting the misspelling that was surely made decades before she was even born. But then again, I'm such a "moron" so I shouldn't be expected to have figured this out.

I suppose that it would be better determined if this is actually a misspelling if we know the year when the safe was made/installed. Very curious to see if it was installed when the building was completed in 1859.