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Athens Lunatic Asylum
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Architecture
The Athens Lunatic asylum consists of Adams, Athens, Gallia, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton and Washington counties. The land was purchased from Coates farm that had originally owned the land for over six years before the hospital was built. With a total of 1,019 acres, the land consisted of five different types of land: cultivated (344 acres), wooded (274 acres), pasture (299 acres), campused (100 acres) and recreation (2 acres). Although not a self-sustaining facility, for many years the hospital had livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop in the earlier years. The architect for the original building was Levi T. Scofield of Cleveland. Based on the Kirkbride plan, the main building was to include an administration building and two wings that included three sections. The males were housed in the left wards and females in the right. They each had their own specific dining halls. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building. Almost double of what Kirkbride had recommended. The building itself was 853 feet long and 60 feet in width. Also built onto the main building in the back were a laundry room and a boiler house. Seven cottages were constructed to house even more patients. They could hold less capacity than the wards, but they grouped patients in dormitory like styles. The designs of the buildings and grounds were influenced by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a 19th century physician who authored an influential treatise on hospital design called, On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane. Kirkbride buildings are most recognizably characterized by their "bat wing" floor plan and often lavish Victorian-era architecture. Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati designed the hospital grounds. Some of Haerlin's other landscape designs are seen in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery and the Oval on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. The original Athens Lunatic Asylum situated on a hill south of the Hocking River. The Athens Mental Hospital grounds was built on the top of a hillside in the late 1860s, and is completely stable due to its position atop the hill rather than on a slope.
Utilities The water came from institution wells, each with 1050 G.P.M capacity. The electricity came from institution plants, with two steam turbo-generators holding 700 KW each. The sewerage came from the city of Athens facilities and the heat came from institution plants with coal-fired boilers.
Administration Building Construction began in 1868, completed in 1875 60,000 total sq feet 4 floors Basement and attic 95 total rooms Present use: administration Conditions: fair and good Cost to replace: $903,000 Present value: $285,400
Farm Office Building Year completed: 1900 600 total sq feet 1 floor 2 rooms Present use: administration Condition: good Cost to replace: $3,000 Present Value: $1,900
Amusement Hall Year completed: 1900 7,163 total sq feet 2 floors 3 rooms Present use: recreation Condition: good Cost to replace: $93,100 Present value: $32,700
Male Wards Year completed: 1873 76,501 total sq feet 3-4 floors Basement and attic 265 rooms Present use: residence Condition: fair Cost to replace: $1,228,800 Present Value: $486,900
Female Wards Year completed: 1873 96,343 total sq feet 3-4 floors Basement and attic 351 rooms Present use: 351 Condition: Good – fair Cost to replace: $1,541,500 Present value: $610,700
Physicians Units Year completed: 1951 2,322 total sq feet each 2 floors Basement 12 rooms each Present use: residence Condition: good Cost to replace: $43,500 each Present value: $34,500 each
Farms Manager Residence Year completed: 1885 840 total sq feet 1 floor Partial basement and attic 5 rooms Present use: residence Condition: good Cost to replace: $5,500 Present Value: $2,700
Female Dining Hall Year completed: 1905 800 total sq feet 1 floor Basement 1 room Present use: maintenance Condition: poor Cost to replace: $10,400 Present value: $1,300
Male Dining Hall Year completed: 1888 27,232 total sq feet 2 floors Basement and attic 36 rooms Present use: food service Condition: good Cost to replace: $367,600 Present value: $80,400
Laundry Building Year completed: 1956 17,284 total sq feet 1 floor Basement 10 rooms Present use: laundry services Cost to replace: $172,800 Present value: $147,800
Power Plant Year completed: 1951 16,526 total sq feet 2 floors Partial basement Present use: heating and electricity Condition: good Cost to replace: $544,000 Present value: $445,500
Modern Day Architecture
By the early 1990s, many of the original buildings had fallen into disrepair and were no longer used by the hospital and thus abandoned. The site of the original main building is now owned by Ohio University and is the one developed portion of a much larger parcel of land called, "The Ridges". The presence of a stable funding authority, Ohio University, has ensured restoration of much of the original grounds, as envisioned by Haerlin and others. Most buildings have been renovated and turned into classrooms and office buildings. The administration building is now the home of The Kennedy Art Museum, showcasing paintings and artwork of all different types of artists. The largest most well known cottage that has not been renovated is the old tubercular ward or “cottage b”. It sits sheltered on a hill far away from much of the other buildings. Annual Reports of 1909 show records of the first year the cottage was used. It housed patients specifically suffering from tuberculosis. It was isolated because the illness was highly contagious. The most notable appearance aspect about he TB Ward is the large screened in porch that stretches across the front of the building. It was designed to be fire proof, so construction to renovate this building has fallen to a stop. Its walls are lined with asbestos, which also make it a huge health hazard. Ironically enough, asbestos was not known to be harmful and cause cancer of the lung, so patients were being exposed to chemicals that made their breathing even more difficult.
Cottage “M” sits on the main circle and has also not been renovated. The reason it hasn’t received the treatment is because it is also lined with asbestos. The building used to be used as male and female living quarters and was built in 1907. The Dairy Barn Southeastern Ohio Cultural Arts Center, a nonprofit arts organization, is located in the old hospital's remodeled dairy barn; it is privately owned and operated. The Dairy Barn Arts Center [1] operates a calendar for sculpting and exhibits. Members of the Athens, Ohio chapter of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, have worked to restore the three graveyards located on the grounds of The Ridges. School organizations provide tours of the facility around halloween time each year. The preserve is also regularly used by the school's Army ROTC battalion. The George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs is also located at The Ridges, in a set of three separate buildings across the area. [edit]
Modern History and Present Day
By the early 1990s, many of the original buildings had fallen into disrepair and were no longer used by the hospital and thus abandoned. The site of the original main building is now owned by Ohio University and is the one developed portion of a much larger parcel of land called, "The Ridges". The presence of a stable funding authority, Ohio University, has ensured restoration of much of the original grounds, as envisioned by Haerlin and others. Most buildings have been renovated and turned into classrooms and office buildings. The administration building is now the home of The Kennedy Art Museum, showcasing paintings and artwork of all different types of artists. The largest most well known cottage that has not been renovated is the old tubercular ward or “cottage b”. It sits sheltered on a hill far away from much of the other buildings. Annual Reports of 1909 show records of the first year the cottage was used. It housed patients specifically suffering from tuberculosis. It was isolated because the illness was highly contagious. The most notable appearance aspect about he TB Ward is the large screened in porch that stretches across the front of the building. It was designed to be fire proof, so construction to renovate this building has fallen to a stop. It’s walls are lined with asbestos, which also make it a huge health hazard. Ironically enough, asbestos was not known to be harmful and cause cancer of the lung, so patients were being exposed to chemicals that made their breathing even more difficult.
Cottage “M” sits on the main circle and has also not been renovated. The reason it hasn’t received the treatment is because it is also lined with asbestos. The building used to be used as male and female living quarters and was built in 1907. The Dairy Barn Southeastern Ohio Cultural Arts Center, a nonprofit arts organization, is located in the old hospital's remodeled dairy barn; it is privately owned and operated. The Dairy Barn Arts Center [1] operates a calendar for sculpting and exhibits. Members of the Athens, Ohio chapter of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, have worked to restore the three graveyards located on the grounds of The Ridges. School organizations provide tours of the facility around halloween time each year. The preserve is also regularly used by the school's Army ROTC battalion. The George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs is also located at The Ridges, in a set of three separate buildings across the area. [edit]See also
Walter Freeman Lobotomy [edit]References
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. ^ McCabe, Doug (1993). Athens Lunatic Asylum aka "The Ridges": A Guide to Repository Holdings. Alden Library - Ohio University - Athens, OH: Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections. ^ . Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections - Alden Library - Ohio University - Athens, OH: Division of Hygiene and Division of Hygiene and Mental Health. n.d.. Annual Report of the Trustees of Athens Lunatic Asylum to the Governor of the State of Ohio for the Year Ending Nov. 15, 1872. Columbus: Nevins & Myers, State Printers. 1873. Annual Report of the Athens Hospital for the Insane to the Governor of the State of Ohio for the Year 1876. Columbus: Nevins & Myers, State Printers. 1877. Beatty, Elizabeth & Stone, Marjorie. Getting to Know Athens County. Athens, Ohio: The Stone House. 1984. Cordingley, Gary. Stories of Medicine in Athens County, Ohio. Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc. 2006. ISBN 9780615218670 El-Hai, Jack. The Lobotomist: a maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. 2005. ISBN 978-0471232926 Tomes, Nancy. The Art of Asylum-Keeping: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the origins of American psychiatry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1994 paperback reprint of 1984 hardcover. ISBN 978-0812215397 Valenstein, Eliot. Great and Desperate Cures: the rise and decline of psychosurgery and other radical treatments for mental illness. New York: Basic Books, Inc. 1986. ISBN 978-0465027118 Ziff, Katherine. Asylum and Community: connections between the Athens Lunatic Asylum and the village of Athens, 1867-1893. Ph.D. thesis. Ohio University. Athens, Ohio. 2004.