I feel it's about time to reel out one of the big ones, and this was perhaps the biggest one of them all - as well as being the place I was most looking forward to seeing. The hospital is pretty well known within the exploring community over there, but it's location in the deep, deep south means it never really gets a whole lot of attention as it's far away from the exploring epicentres of the northeast and midwest regions.
This location is also notable as one of the only completely abandoned asylums/psychiatric hospital campuses left in the country, as well as by square-footage being one of the largest. Most of the time the abandoned psychiatric hospitals over there form parts of facilities which are still, to some degree, in use as unlike the 'compact arrow' or 'corridor' style all-in-one designs prevalent here in the UK, in the States the preferred design for the majority of institutions was that of multiple standalone buildings with connecting service tunnels underneath. That makes it very easy for individual buildings to be closed down and left abandoned whilst the rest is still operational. So this enormous place is a rarity in that there is nothing active on the campus at all.
The hospital has a long and varied history, by American standards. It was originally a military arsenal established in 1828 and was one of the U.S. Army's main ammunition plants between it's construction and the civil war. In January 1861, the arsenal was taken over by the State militia and landed in Confederate hands where it stayed from then until almost the end of the civil war. Following the end of the war it was handed back to the federal government, between 1887 and 1894 was used to hold Native American Apache prisoners, and in 1895 the site was given to the State. In 1900 the buildings were converted to a mental hospital to relieve overcrowding at other State facilities, and exclusively admitted African-American patients until 1969 when mental health facilities were desegregated. Over time more buildings were added to the site around the original arsenal buildings confined by the original 12ft wall, leaving the layout a confusing jumble of buildings of all ages and styles mixed together. The most modern buildings appear to date from the 1970s, with various others from the early 1900s, and the original arsenal is regarded as one of the most complete of it's kind in the country. Buildings appear to have been closed in stages over a period of decades, with the original arsenal buildings in a terrible state of repair, and by the time complete closure came about in 2012 only the three modern buildings were being used.
This hospital is my favourite hospital I've ever explored. It has everything - serious natural decay, some very sketchy floors, loads of equipment left behind, and the perils of avoiding the patrolling security who drive around the site in a car - with no tunnels to hide in between buildings it becomes a bit more of an adventure travelling between them, even if we did know the approximate routine of security. We explored five buildings without any major dramas and left without incident eight hours later. Sadly for all the mortuary fans not only was the mortuary sealed it's also a hugely disappointing building, a tiny structure near the chapel with only a two body fridge which was surprising for a facility of this size - the chapel being equally disappointing. It also never had an auditorium or hall of any kind, which is another oddity but I guess maybe the original buildings and space restriction meant one was never built.
The map below shows the site and the buildings we went to, in order - The first building has floors so sketchy and a roof so bad that it probably won't last much longer before it collapses in on itself like most of the original arsenal buildings have. The second building was a strange 1940s single storey hydrotherapy treatment ward of some kind, the third and fourth buildings were exact copies of each other in terms of layout and contained many, many interesting things. The fifth and final building was one of the three modern buildings in use until 2012 and was a complete 180 from the decaying grandeur of the rest of it.
The first sight that greeted us, on the third floor of the first building, one below the top. The roof of this building is in a terrible state, and with floors made only of wood and plaster it made for more than a few squeaky bum moments crossing parts of the upper floors.
Moving up a level.
With the sound of security driving around outside breaking the silence of the morning air we stayed put on the top floor for fifteen minutes or so, just to be sure they'd had enough time to return to their building at the front of the hospital. We exited the building and hot-footed it to the southern end of the site, I didn't manage to take many externals but I got a few on my phone on the way.
After a short while in the second building we briskly made our way to the third building, which appeared to have been used to store all manner of old hospital equipment presumably after other buildings had closed and been cleared. All three floors were rammed full of beds, wheelchairs, bedside furniture and other hospital gear - it gave us a lot to shoot whilst waiting for security to do another round.
After waiting a while for security to come around, we got bored of sitting still and just decided to go for it, and so with a hop skip and a jump made our way across the site into this building's mirror image. In contrast to the previous building, this one was a lot less cluttered, but the equipment it did have inside it was pretty damn amazing, and overall it was my favourite building to shoot. The amount of original wooden cell doors too was an awesome sight to see.
Continued....
This location is also notable as one of the only completely abandoned asylums/psychiatric hospital campuses left in the country, as well as by square-footage being one of the largest. Most of the time the abandoned psychiatric hospitals over there form parts of facilities which are still, to some degree, in use as unlike the 'compact arrow' or 'corridor' style all-in-one designs prevalent here in the UK, in the States the preferred design for the majority of institutions was that of multiple standalone buildings with connecting service tunnels underneath. That makes it very easy for individual buildings to be closed down and left abandoned whilst the rest is still operational. So this enormous place is a rarity in that there is nothing active on the campus at all.
The hospital has a long and varied history, by American standards. It was originally a military arsenal established in 1828 and was one of the U.S. Army's main ammunition plants between it's construction and the civil war. In January 1861, the arsenal was taken over by the State militia and landed in Confederate hands where it stayed from then until almost the end of the civil war. Following the end of the war it was handed back to the federal government, between 1887 and 1894 was used to hold Native American Apache prisoners, and in 1895 the site was given to the State. In 1900 the buildings were converted to a mental hospital to relieve overcrowding at other State facilities, and exclusively admitted African-American patients until 1969 when mental health facilities were desegregated. Over time more buildings were added to the site around the original arsenal buildings confined by the original 12ft wall, leaving the layout a confusing jumble of buildings of all ages and styles mixed together. The most modern buildings appear to date from the 1970s, with various others from the early 1900s, and the original arsenal is regarded as one of the most complete of it's kind in the country. Buildings appear to have been closed in stages over a period of decades, with the original arsenal buildings in a terrible state of repair, and by the time complete closure came about in 2012 only the three modern buildings were being used.
This hospital is my favourite hospital I've ever explored. It has everything - serious natural decay, some very sketchy floors, loads of equipment left behind, and the perils of avoiding the patrolling security who drive around the site in a car - with no tunnels to hide in between buildings it becomes a bit more of an adventure travelling between them, even if we did know the approximate routine of security. We explored five buildings without any major dramas and left without incident eight hours later. Sadly for all the mortuary fans not only was the mortuary sealed it's also a hugely disappointing building, a tiny structure near the chapel with only a two body fridge which was surprising for a facility of this size - the chapel being equally disappointing. It also never had an auditorium or hall of any kind, which is another oddity but I guess maybe the original buildings and space restriction meant one was never built.
The map below shows the site and the buildings we went to, in order - The first building has floors so sketchy and a roof so bad that it probably won't last much longer before it collapses in on itself like most of the original arsenal buildings have. The second building was a strange 1940s single storey hydrotherapy treatment ward of some kind, the third and fourth buildings were exact copies of each other in terms of layout and contained many, many interesting things. The fifth and final building was one of the three modern buildings in use until 2012 and was a complete 180 from the decaying grandeur of the rest of it.
The first sight that greeted us, on the third floor of the first building, one below the top. The roof of this building is in a terrible state, and with floors made only of wood and plaster it made for more than a few squeaky bum moments crossing parts of the upper floors.
Moving up a level.
With the sound of security driving around outside breaking the silence of the morning air we stayed put on the top floor for fifteen minutes or so, just to be sure they'd had enough time to return to their building at the front of the hospital. We exited the building and hot-footed it to the southern end of the site, I didn't manage to take many externals but I got a few on my phone on the way.
After a short while in the second building we briskly made our way to the third building, which appeared to have been used to store all manner of old hospital equipment presumably after other buildings had closed and been cleared. All three floors were rammed full of beds, wheelchairs, bedside furniture and other hospital gear - it gave us a lot to shoot whilst waiting for security to do another round.
After waiting a while for security to come around, we got bored of sitting still and just decided to go for it, and so with a hop skip and a jump made our way across the site into this building's mirror image. In contrast to the previous building, this one was a lot less cluttered, but the equipment it did have inside it was pretty damn amazing, and overall it was my favourite building to shoot. The amount of original wooden cell doors too was an awesome sight to see.
Continued....
