This morning we toured the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, and it was quite an experience! This place is massive! It is supposedly the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in North America, and the second largest in the world, next to the Kremlin! As we drove in, the building itself is very imposing,
So, a little background. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was the oldest state institution in West Virginia and was authorized by the General Assembly of Virginia 22 Mar 1858. The Civil War delayed it's construction so it was not opened for patients until 22 Oct 1864. It was originally designed for 250 patients and reached its peak in the 1950s with 2400 patients in overcrowded and generally poor conditions. Changes in the treatment of mental illness and the physical deterioration of the facility forced its closure in 1994. Over the years it's name changed several times, closing as the Weston State Hospital.
Patients were "admitted" for any number of reasons to include epilepsy, drug or alcohol addiction, and female “hysteria.” Some suffered from mental retardation and others were considered criminally insane. Many others ended up here for odd or erroneous reasons including women who deserted their husbands, asthma, tuberculosis, and indigestion. Men admitted their wives and simply left them there while they pursued extramarital affairs. Children were sometimes dropped off with their mothers, and orphans were left at the asylum. All became wards of the state. Since it closed it has been turned into a museum and they offer the historic tours that we are doing today, and paranormal tours, even at night!!
Back to today and the tour, those arriving for noon tours gathered outside under a tent to fill out waiver forms and then we headed towards the main entrance. This is how we were received LOL! Perfect!
They are alive and were waiting for us!!!!
We entered the facility and were greeted by more staff all dressed up as nurses! The uniforms helped to set the stage for the tours! They have a few rooms adjacent to the entrance set up with displays to view while we waited for our tour to start. Many of the displays related to various "treatments" used years ago, such as transorbital lobotomy's, shock therapy, hydro-therapy (cold) and some wild drug therapy. A few pictures:
Drug therapy:
Notice the 7-Up with Lithium in it!
Electro-shock therapy:
Transorbital Lobotomy:
Tranquilization therapy:
Hydro (cold) Therapy:
Isolation (Seclusion) Therapy:
No inside door knob
So we opted for the 4-floor tour which included several of the wards, plus the upper floors that included management offices, nurses dormitory rooms, areas where the violent patients were kept, etc. From the first picture you can see how massive this place is, plus there are wings that go out the back, so got a healthy hike in today. I will add some pictures here that show the floors:
This is one of the wings that has been restored. It would have housed patients that presented no hazard:
This was a dayroom or common area.
A typical room in this wing
In later years of over-crowding, this shows how they housed patients in the hallway
A dayroom that has not been refinished
How it looked years ago
Our tour guide in front of a fire door, installed after a massive fire damaged one wing
These buildings were in the back behind the main building:
Secure building for the criminally insane
The rear of the main building and the exercise area
We finished up outside and then headed back in and to the second, third and fourth floors.
The coffin staircase to the upper floors
Administration offices
Nurse dormitory rooms
Ballroom also used as a gymnasium.
That concluded our tour. There were a whole lot more pictures I took but we are nearing overload here so we will call that good. It was very interesting and thank goodness we have come a long ways from the days where they used the therapy's that were used here.
We headed back to the campground for a couple hours and then came back through town to a few miles northwest and the Lamberts Vintage Winery. They used to grow their own grapes, but some sort of fungus or other disease in the soil caused the vines to die. Now they import the juice from northern New York and other areas to create their wines.
The tasting room
We did a tasting, selected three bottles to take with us, and then headed outside to enjoy a glass of wine before we headed back. They hose many weddings here and they are setup to do so.
They even have their own chapel!
Tomorrow we tour the Mountaineer Military Museum and the glass company and then head back to prepare to depart Friday morning.
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