An Introduction to The Ridges

In 1867 the Ohio Legislature created a commission to find a suitable site for an asylum in south-eastern Ohio. Athens, Ohio was found to be that suitable site. Construction began on a Kirkbride building, and the Athens Lunatic Asylum opened on January 9, 1874.

Kirkbride buildings are relics of an obsolete therapuetic method known as Moral Treatment. Moral treatment was a popular psychiatric treatment in the early half of the nineteenth century when asylums, following the example of the York Retreat in England, began to offer humane care to the mentally ill. Patients had a close personal relationship with the hospital staff, positive behavior was rewarded, and patients were expected to exercise self-control. Moral treatment was marked 

by a well-ordered daily routine in which patients followed a therapuetic regiment of work and leisure activities. Moral treatment is certainly more complex, and if you are interested in learning more about it see this article from the Medical Library Association.

The main building of The Ridges, seen at the top of the post, was built in Kirkbride style to give an ideal sanctuary for the mentally ill and to have them actively participate in their recovery. By the turn of the twentieth century, orchards and farmlands were maintained on the property by hospital employees and patients, making the hospital nearly self-sufficient.

The main building also had 544 patient rooms, and when it first opened it only housed around 200 patients. The patients with the most self-control participated in recreational activities like boating, painting, dances, and picnics. Church services were also offered in the asylum chapel building. Most of the nurses who worked at the hospital also lived there in order to provide better 24 hour care for the patients. I have provided original pictures of the buildings and even some originals of patients and nurses.

Many people began to have confidence in the way that loved ones were being treated in the asylum, and were approving of the moral treatment method. Unfortunately, this led to many new patients which created an overcrowding in the hospital. The patient records show an increase from the original 200 hundred patients to nearly 2000 patients by the early 1900s. Family members could have a loved one committed from something as simple as punishment for stealing, postpartum depression in women, or for other severe cases like bipolar disorder. Due to the overcrowding, and lack of staff increases, the quality of the treatments began to decline. 

Another negative influence on the asylum at the time was the invention of new and "better" treatments for patients developed by the leading psychiatric doctors of the early to mid 1900s. These treatments included water treatments, shock therapy, and the infamous lobotomy. 

The water treatments consisted of patients being thrust into ice cold water for extended periods of time. Some were wrapped and restrained by sheets that had been soaked in the ice water, too. The shock therapy, also known as electroconvulsive therapy or ECT, was used to induce a seizure in a patient for therapeutic effect. Most patients were anesthetized, but included many negative effects, including amnesia. Most treatments were delivered three times a week for 8-12 treatments. However, sometimes shock therapy was used as a punishment for mental patients who were deemed to have "behavioral problems". Finally, a lobotomy was usually performed by a specialist doctor who would travel from mental hospital to mental hospital, "curing" as many patients as he could during his visit. There are also two types of lobotomies: the original open-skull surgery, and the trans-orbital lobotomy. In the original lobotomy, patients had their skulls opened and doctors separated their neural passageways. Many patients died while on the table, but the ones who survived did show signs of improvement. The main theory was that this caused patients to forget normal things, like how to sit, and therefore also caused them to forget their psychiatric tendencies. The trans-orbital lobotomy was invented by Dr. Walter Freeman in the 1950s, and used electric shock to make patients unconscious, and then used an ice pick-like tool to enter the brain through tear-ducts in the eyes. Once the pick had been hammered into the proper place in the brain, it was moved back and forth to severe neuron receptors. While many patients with sever symptoms showed improvement, many patients had no improvements but suffered severe complications, and of course, some operations resulted in death.

It was not until the 1960s that humane treatments began reappearing in asylums. The lobotomy was declared barbaric, and a new wave of psychotropic drugs became the number one method of dealing with mental illness. Also, different illnesses received specialized care, instead of one method of treatment for all mental ailments. 

The final patients of the Athens Center for Mental Health left in 1993, but not without leaving their mark. These are pictures of the windowsills, made of sandstone, and some patients used their fingernails and other odd objects to carve into them. The buildings were left vacant for several years until Ohio University bought them and renovated some into museums, office space and classrooms. 

With all of the patients who went through the system, and for some, the surgeries and treatments they participated in, it is no wonder that speculation about their souls lingering is abundant. So much so that students at OU

toured the asylum every Halloween up until 2000. Also, The Ridges landed a starring role on the Fox TV show "Scariest Places on Earth". Part 1 and 2 can be seen on You Tube. 

My next posts will investigate some of the rumors seen in the "Scariest Places on Earth" tape. The very next post will investigate the body stain and the link, if any, to the strange suicide in Wilson Hall. The next post will investigate the theory of the pentagram of cemeteries. If you found one of the other rumors more interesting, leave me a comment and I will add that to my investigations as well. For a very dramatized video that will put you in the mood for my next posts.