Athens Ridges

General Information

The OES visited the Athens Ridges on various dates between 2003 and 2005. The Ridges, as it is commonly referred to, is a former mental institution in Athens that sits atop a hill that overlooks the town. The entire complex is now owned by Ohio University. On January 9, 1874 the Athens Lunatic Asylum opened its doors on more than 1000 acres on the former Coates farm. Many mental institutions sprouted up during this time period, due in large part to Civil War veterans who were suffering from what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Six years earlier in 1868, construction had began on the magnificent building designed by Herman Haerlin, a student of Frederick L. Olmstead who had designed Central Park in New York. The first patient at the asylum was Thomas Armstrong of Belmont County. Daniel Fremau was not far behind, he believed that he was the second coming of Christ. The main building had 544 patient rooms and when it opened, housed about 200 patients. The grounds were expanded several times during the asylum's history, adding many outbuildings including a tuberculosis ward, dairy barn, gymnasium and more. The main building's design centered around the idea that it was very therapeutic for patients to live in a home environment. The least disturbed patients were housed near the center of the building to encourage socializing and accustom to human interaction. These patients often had free roam of the grounds and participated in recreational activities, plays, and church services. The more violent patients were housed near the ends of the wings, farthest from the building's entry/exit. As the asylums gained popularity by the 1900s, it became common place for families to drop off elderly relatives they could not care for and rebellious teenagers. The homeless would use the institution for temporary shelter. By the early 1900s, the population at Athens Lunatic Asylum grew from 200 to 2000, leading to overcrowding and a decline in quality treatment. With the decrease in care and attention, treatment led to primitive including water treatment (submerged in ice cold water for extended periods of time), shock therapy (electric shocks to patients submerged in water or directly to the temples from brine-soaked electrodes), lobotomy (skull opened and the neural passages separated midway through the brain), and trans-orbital lobotomy (unconscious patient has a thin metal instrument inserted through the tear duct and sawing back and forth to sever the neural receptors). The last two options were tricky and claimed the lives of many. The living conditions weren't much better. Patients shared bunks intended for one person and were often restrained. Patients spoke out by carving messages, such as "I was never crazy", in the sandstone and wood trim. It wouldn't be until the 1960s when drugs took over as the main form of treatment. As patient numbers continued to go down due to the success of drug treatment, the asylum housed less than 300 patients by 1981. President Ronald Regan's de-institutionalization process was the final nail in the coffin for America's mental institutions. Thousands of mentally unstable people were released into the streets and homelessness rose across the country. The last patients of The Ridges left the institution in 1993. The Ohio University acquired the former asylum's land and buildings in the 1990s. The buildings stood vacant for several years and the main building, now Lin Hall/Kennedy Museum of Arts, was renovated and turned into an art museum, studios, and offices. There is one more piece of significant history to The Ridges. While still serving as a mental institution in 1978, a female patient named Margaret Schilling went missing on the first of December. Margaret had free-reign of the grounds and often wondered throughout the building. A search was conducted of the entire grounds to no avail. On January 12, 1979, a few boxes in Ward N 20 were moved by a maintenance worker to reveal Margaret's dead body laying on the floor. She had removed her clothing, stacked them neatly in a corner, and laid down on the cold concrete floor, officially dying weeks earlier of hear failure. When her body was removed from the room, a stain outlining the places her body touched the floor was left. The stain is believed to have been created on the concrete by light shining in through the windows creating a chemical reaction during decomposition. During one of our visits, we were fortunate enough to gain entry into the building and see the stain for ourselves. We also recorded two EVPs that are on the second page. Click Here to see results from our paranormal investigation conducted at The Ridges.

Location Information: Active School

The Ridges is located on Ohio University grounds off North Ridge Drive in Athens, Athens County.

Photographs: Exterior