Athens Mental Health Center ("The Ridges"), Athens County, Ohio
History
Originally called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, the Athens Mental Health Center opened on January 9, 1874 as an institution for the criminally insane. According to the Forgotten Ohio website, the design of the structure followed the increasingly popular domestic theme, which discouraged an atmosphere of confinement and encouraged a more home-like environment. The less disturbed patients resided towards the center of the facility, closer to the administrative offices, while increasingly problematic and/or violent patients were housed further away.
As time passed, problems emerged. For instance, parents began to send their normal, but rebellious teenagers away to the asylum, and adult children began to send their elderly parents when they could not, or would no longer, care for them. The result was overcrowding and a decline in the quality of treatment, with a lack of individualized care. Brutal treatments, such as electric shock therapy and lobotomy, came into effect, from which many patients died.
In 1993, budget cuts forced the Athens Mental Health Center to close, and the final mentally ill patients were simply released onto the streets. At this time, the facility, having undergone nine official name changes, was known as The Ridges, and was owned by Ohio University. Several buildings are open to the public for tours.
The Stain
One particularly haunting aspect of The Ridges is the famous stain. On December 1, 1978, inmate Margaret Schilling disappeared. She was found dead on January 12, 1979 on the top floor of ward N. 20. After removing her body, her outline appeared impressed on the floor, revealing even her hairstyle and folds of her clothing. Its appearance is not scientifically impossible, because it may have been caused by the decomposition of her body in reaction with direct sunlight from the window. But the stain was repeatedly cleaned, and always reappears, and can still be seen today. Some say the ghost of Margaret Schilling and others who have died in the hospital wander the halls at night.
The Cemeteries
The five cemeteries of Athens Mental Health Center are reputed to be haunted. According to the Altered Dimensions website, inmates' graves were lined in perfectly straight rows and each marked with only the individual inmate number. There is one area, however, at which the headstones are arranged in a circular design. A popular legend is that this spot was once a meeting place for witch covens.
Nearby Hannings Cemetery was called the thirteenth most haunted place in the world by the British Society for Psychical Research. Frequent sightings of a man with a hooded robe – who chases people out of the cemetery with a sickle – have occurred. Simms Cemetery, also reportedly haunted, is the home of the Hanging Tree, where many criminals were hung during the 19th century. Rope scars are still visible to this day. West Gate Cemetery is the site of a number of unmarked graves of fallen soldiers and murderers. It is home to the Angel Statue, erected to commemorate fallen soldiers, which has reportedly been seen flapping its wings and crying real tears.
Viewed from a map, the five cemeteries of Athens Mental Health Center form the perfect shape of a pentagram. Eerie coincidence? Right in the middle of the shape sits Wilson Hall, an Ohio University building that opened in 1964. It was built on the same land as an original graveyard used by the asylum, and is the site of several reported occurrences. Room 428, in particular, has had reports of objects flying off shelves, doors opening and closing of their own volition, toilets flushing, and sights of the ghost of a student who died in the room. The student is said to have practiced astral projection, where the spirit separates from the body and travels on its own. The reports about the room have been so effective as to have made it permanently sealed off from entry.
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