The Ridges AKA the Athens Lunatic Asylum – Athens, Ohio

When was this "asylum" opened, and what did it look like? Did it follow Kirkbride's design? 

The Ridges opened in 1874. The four story hospital was originally 153 rooms on 141 acres of land, but over the years it grew to be over 800 rooms on 1,000 acres. 

              

The grounds had a beautiful landscape of hills and trees, gardens, ponds, fountains, and a waterfall. There was a farm with livestock and gardens and orchards where the patients worked. The facility was built in lavish Victorian-era architecture complete with a ballroom!

The structure of the facility was influenced by Kirkbride and featured the classic “bat wing” floor plan of male and female wards with 4 sections each extending from a central administration building, with the more violent patients further away from the administrators. 

What was this institution's original intent?

The Ridges was intended for the “treatment of the insane.” The hope was that the beautiful grounds would help patents with their recovery. The hospital originally primarily served Civil War veterans, children, and criminals with mental illness. It initially housed 120 patients. But when it was rebuilt in 1877 after a fire, it could house 852 patients.

Who were the patients there? Do narratives of their experiences exist?

Initially there were a large number of Veterans with PTSD, but there were many patients with many different diagnoses. One of the first patients admitted was Daniel Fremau who believed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. There was one "famous" case. In 1977 Billy Milligan was admitted after an insanity plea – the first one in American history to me made for "multiple personality disorder" – for kidnapping and raping three women. His story is told in the book The Minds of Bill Milligan by Daniel Keyes. There are a few books published about the Athen's Asylum such as Asylum on the Hill, but no published work follows a real patient's experience at Athen's Asylum, so many of the stories of former patient's are now mystery. There are carvings in the walls and windowsills left behind by former patients. One carving reads" I was never crazy."

What was the patients' experience like in that institution, and did that change over the course of the institution's history?

The nineteenth century was marked by progressive treatments. The calmer patients participated in recreational activities like boating, painting, dances, and picnics. They had church services, plays, and could freely roam the grounds. The twentieth century was a stark contrast to this. Treatments like being submerged in ice cold water, electroshock therapy, and lobotomies were common. Patients were restrained, made to sleep in group bunks in rooms intended for one person, and patient care generally suffered. A nurse was sometimes responsible for up to 50 patients at a time!

Did the institution, its services, and patients change over time? 

The population growth in the 1900s led to severe overcrowding and subsequent decline in quality of care. The hospital was over 3 times capacity with nearly 2,000 patients. It was common for the elderly to be left there by relatives, parents to commit rebellious teenagers, and for homeless to take shelter here. Overcrowding led to a return of many previously abandoned primitive treatments like shock therapy. Lobotomies became all the rage, but then went out of fashion. The 1960s brought about psychotropic medications and the “thorazine shuffle” as well as more humane care and more diverse services, e.g. intellectual disability, drug rehab and geriatrics programs.

How many people lived, worked, and died there? 

For many years, the asylum was Athen’s largest employer. Some were fully trained, some were not. Some lived on the hospital grounds, some did not.

About 2,000 people are in the burial grounds. Many gravestones are for unknown patients due to missing records, many gravestones are shared for two patients.

Were bad conditions ever exposed to the public? How?

A popular ghost story of Margaret Schilling lives on. She got lost in an abandoned unheated ward and got locked in there and died from exposure since it was winter. Her body was found weeks later lying on the ground decomposing with her clothes folded neatly in a pile next to her. When they tried to clean up the body it left a stain. People take walking ghost tours of the facility even still and get to see this. But other than that, there wasn't any unique scandal or expose specific to this institution.

Though, Dr Freeman performed hundreds of lobotomies here, more than at any other Ohio institution.

Would you have wanted "treatment" in this institution?

Nope, sure wouldn’t. Wouldn’t have wanted to work there either. However, if I had to be a patient there I would certainly prefer to have been there in the early years (1870s-1900s) when moral treatment methods were still being utilized.

References:

http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html

http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php/Columbus_State_Hospital

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Lunatic_Asylum

http://www.faacofohio.org/history.html

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Athens_Asylum

http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php/Columbus_State_Hospital  <-- This one has a training video for staff with footage of the hospital in the 1940s.