State's Exhibit
State's Exhibit
Ep 24 - West Virgina | Trans-Allegheny Insane Asylum
Well, we are in the spooky season and to get us prepped for scary stuff, we present a crazy story that spans generations, wars and medical practices.
**CAUTION: Graphic material.
XOXO
Page + Jenn
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You could do it. Oh , there we go. <laugh> . Oh , good Lord. Okay. Good morning.
Speaker 2:Good morning.
Speaker 1:It's Friday.
Speaker 2:Oh , thank goodness. This has been the longest short week of my life. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Alright , well , um, good morning. This is the, I'm Jen <laugh> .
Speaker 2:I'm Paige.
Speaker 1:This is <laugh> . This is the state's exhibit. True crime, comedy, bad parenting, all the things. Podcast. Did I say podcast?
Speaker 2:I heard it. Okay.
Speaker 1:Who am I? <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Where am I?
Speaker 1:And what the?
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 1:And that is the, the theme of this, this week's podcast episode.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes. So, well, and I walk in and Jen's like, it's gonna be a long one.
Speaker 1:It's a long one.
Speaker 2:I can't wait.
Speaker 1:Well, we gotta get into the spooky, the spooky season.
Speaker 2:Have you noticed that? And I'm all for decorating, but it was September 1st when people started putting Halloween stuff up.
Speaker 1:Nah , it was August 31st. Yeah. What is there ? 31 days in August.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah . Huh . That's , that's one of the 30 ones. <laugh> . So yeah. My neighborhood is all decked out and has been since the end of August. And I go to all the shops and they've got Halloween stuff .
Speaker 1:Does that make you Technically a has been .
Speaker 2:I guess so. Man. I'm , I know I'm outta the loop, but
Speaker 1:<laugh>, so the younger one was like, why is Halloween stuff out? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And I'm like, oh, well, if you head on over to Hobby Lobby, there's gonna be Christmas. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:They put , they do Christmas in June or July. It's ridiculous. And like, I'm a maker and so like Makers, we make, you know, people that make things. Yeah. Yeah. All there's like, 'cause you gotta think about the holidays, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you breaking out the pumpkin spice there's , in June,
Speaker 1:Well, there's Christmas in July is always the, the thing. But I've been wearing my hoodie. I got my, I got my Billabong hoodie on. I'm , I love Billabong. It's like my favorite story . I would live there if I could.
Speaker 2:It looks comfy.
Speaker 1:Oh . My older one's, like, what's a billabong? Oh . And I'm like, it has nothing to do with a bong.
Speaker 2:No. You know what I love though, is you'll see like trucks or Jeeps or whatever, and they have Yolo or , uh, surf life on the back of like , oh ,
Speaker 1:The salt Salt life .
Speaker 2:The salt life. I'm like, yeah, dude, you're in Texas. What
Speaker 1:You live in Dallas?
Speaker 2:What? What salt are you talking about ?
Speaker 1:That's not even a real lake over there. I mean , the missing , none of are man made it .
Speaker 2:Most of them in Texas are so,
Speaker 1:Oh , there , well, I was reading, there was like the, the best , uh, one of the best beaches in Texas is over in Fort Worth.
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker 1:And I'm like
Speaker 2:That I love Fort Worth.
Speaker 1:Just 'cause the water meets the land doesn't make it a beach. Well ,
Speaker 2:And they're building a beach by us, quote unquote . Yeah. But if you ship in the sand and there's no body of water that naturally exists there . I don't know .
Speaker 1:Oh. Oh. Hey, we decided, remember last week we decided that we're gonna add onto the end of our podcast. For those of you who do enjoy rabbit holes. Oh. We have the last portion of our, of our show is gonna be post co . No, that's not it. I just wanna use rhyming words. <laugh> post show convo. Oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right. I
Speaker 1:Forgot about that . I like how you have no idea what's going on in
Speaker 2:Our podcast. No, I have no clue. I missed the memo. It's
Speaker 1:Like you're someone different. Yeah. Where is
Speaker 2:Paige? That's
Speaker 1:Fine. The aliens took her brain.
Speaker 2:So where are we going today, Lee ?
Speaker 1:Oh, we have a podcast. Uhhuh <affirmative> . Okay. We're going to West Virginia. Oh boy. Like I mentioned last week or the week before, whenever that one was.
Speaker 2:And I was equally as excited then.
Speaker 1:Well, so we're getting into the spooky season. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . I've been wearing my, my fall wear , trying to bring in the cold weather
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Even though it's 95 degrees out,
Speaker 1:It's definitely 95 degrees outside. And according to my barometer, it's frizzy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. High humidity, <laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah. People say there's nothing past a hundred percent, but I disagree. Oh,
Speaker 2:I've seen Houston. They, they say they don't trust air. They can't see. Yeah . That's gotta be over a hundred.
Speaker 1:Oh , well, that's where I grew up, down there in the Houston, where it's just thick like
Speaker 2:Butter. Embrace the curls.
Speaker 1:Yeah . Well, we're going to West Virginia today. Oh boy. I haven't been to West Virginia, but it, the pictures look beautiful. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So, so getting into this spooky season, I'm gonna talk about an insane asylum. Ooh ,
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:Exciting. Oh , yeah , yeah. We're gonna do a little bit of history. So this is about the building. Oh , okay . This is a story about the building and the people who were in the building. And so it's not like a crime. Want what sort of crimey at the end? Yeah. Uh , because asylum's in, in their own rider . Horrifying.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Especially in the early days. It's ,
Speaker 1:It's just a crime inside some walls. Yeah, yeah. Right. It's, that's what , so it's
Speaker 2:State sponsored. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a crime . <laugh> . It's a crime with a roof on it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . I
Speaker 1:Love it. Yeah. Well, I found some things. I went to this a website called trivia sharp.com. Oh . And , uh, this chick is , I'm assuming it's a woman because she's hilarious. And <laugh> .
Speaker 2:That's the only explanation. My
Speaker 1:Therefore we're twins. Yeah. So you're, if you're hilarious, you're a woman. <laugh> . And so she has , uh, she went through, I'm assuming it's a, she, I don't know , it's a she. So on trivia sharp.com , uh, she's talking about like, fascinating laws in West Virginia. Mm . And I thought this was right up my alley. So, so she says West Virginia takes civilized communication to the next level. Do you know that you can be fined $1 for swearing in public?
Speaker 2:Oh . Oh , really?
Speaker 1:I would be so poor.
Speaker 2:I would be broke as a joke .
Speaker 1:I'm the poorest person ever living in west. I'm not moving there. Wow.
Speaker 2:They say, they say cursing, like in a natural form is actually a sign of high intelligence.
Speaker 1:I am the smartest person on earth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We both are
Speaker 1:Geniuses. So smart. A dollar . I like it when you can put the F word like inside in the middle of a word.
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . You get to conjugate it.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you have to put the dollar in a swear jar?
Speaker 1:I don't know what , where you, is there like a library box and you like, put a dollar in and get a book out? <laugh> . I dunno . <laugh> . Alright . So it's illegal to possess a red or black flag in West Virginia. You are also disallowed to wear hats inside theaters.
Speaker 2:<laugh> that. Okay. That so seems
Speaker 1:Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. Well , you can't go Sorry.
Speaker 2:Well , sorry
Speaker 1:Bro.
Speaker 2:He shouldn't have, he shouldn't have gone to the theater in
Speaker 1:The first . He shouldn't have gone to the theater in the first. Maybe we'll cover that one. So , um, we all know it's illegal, but if you're a resident of West Virginia, then you can hit your wife on Sunday morning in public on the courthouse steps.
Speaker 2:No way. No way .
Speaker 1:That's , that's the only time
Speaker 2:That's a real law.
Speaker 1:Apparently. According to this website. I didn't.
Speaker 2:So you have to like, plan to hit your wife
Speaker 1:<laugh> . Yeah. It has to be premeditated. You've gotta ,
Speaker 2:But just the wife, the w the wife can't like bring the husband up.
Speaker 1:Duh. Oh ,
Speaker 2:Sorry. That was so stupid of me. Stop. It's woman brain.
Speaker 1:Uh , it's illegal to walk a lion, tiger and leopard <laugh>. Even on a leash
Speaker 2:Period. Even on a leash.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because rules are rules in Anderson, West Virginia. <laugh> , Alderson, <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Now that's going to create the first law of swear words in public. If I see somebody walking a cougar on a leash down the street on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can . Yeah, you can, you can walk a cougar. Oh yeah. But not a lion, tiger or leopard <laugh> . You got <laugh> . I love America's so dumb. <laugh> . All right . There's an ongoing debate as to whether states should encourage consuming roadkill.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Oh ,
Speaker 1:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> or not. Since drivers have begun to intentionally kill <laugh> animals for food. <laugh> <laugh> . It's okay though. You can eat the roadkill. You just can't kill it. Intentionally Kill it.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Oh, okay. Oops.
Speaker 1:All right . There's an annual festival in Marlin to celebrate this
Speaker 2:Roadkill.
Speaker 1:Yep .
Speaker 2:No . Did you
Speaker 1:See all the roadkill on the way to my house?
Speaker 2:I did. Raccoons,
Speaker 1:Skunk squirrels s are the worst.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah .
Speaker 1:It just gets inside your air conditioner vent . And , and then if you roll your window down to get it outta your <laugh> , it just comes back. It's like a circulation.
Speaker 2:Wow. So there's a festival, like, is it like a potluck?
Speaker 1:We're heading to West Virginia soon. It's
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yes.
Speaker 1:It's now. Listen, do you know also in West Virginia that <laugh> , you're not allowed to whistle underwater <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait. How does somebody whistle under water ? <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Well, what if you're working and you can't whistle while you work?
Speaker 2:So who's gonna catch you?
Speaker 1:I don't know. The other
Speaker 2:Seems like a , I have questions . Lot of old men.
Speaker 1:This clearly stuck sitting in
Speaker 2:A room making cougars and lions and whistling is
Speaker 1:My grandson's an idiot. You know what he did last week? <laugh>. <laugh> . All right , listen. You're also gonna be jailed for a half a year if you make fun of someone for entering a challenge.
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 1:Firemen are allowed to flirt with women who pass through the firehouse.
Speaker 2:No , I like that one. I like that one a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But not if they're underwater and then you're whistling at them. No go. No go . The show.
Speaker 2:<laugh>,
Speaker 1:You'll be taxed 1 cent for every nine and 12 ounces of Coke bottles purchased. That's fine. That's just a regular tax . It's , but listen, if you've got a cold, you'll need to get written consent from your neighbor to dig up Jensen from their yard. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:That's what I always do.
Speaker 1:What's happening in West Vir ? Are you from West Virginia?
Speaker 2:Right in. You
Speaker 1:Gotta tell us
Speaker 2:Now there's some funky Texas laws. I would be curious to do a comparison, but there's , I think that this list is gonna be hard to beat.
Speaker 1:Well, you should look at the, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There's some dumb rules in there.
Speaker 2:Don't be pregnant.
Speaker 1:Don't be pregnant while alive. <laugh>. We didn't put that baby in there. We did not issue that
Speaker 2:Baby. We did not issue that baby <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Okay. And then , uh, we've got, West Virginia also has a strict law prohibiting children whose breath smells like wild onions to attend school.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. No.
Speaker 1:Well , kids eating wild onions. And
Speaker 2:Who's
Speaker 1:Not my kids?
Speaker 2:I mean, well,
Speaker 1:The older one, maybe .
Speaker 2:Oh , the breath check on that one.
Speaker 1:Sorry. I keep clearing my throat. It's ridiculous here though. It's , you
Speaker 2:Got a little bit of the ,
Speaker 1:It's pollen. Ugh .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I wake up every,
Speaker 1:Well , months a year. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative> . Yeah . Wake up every morning. Love
Speaker 1:That. Don't move to Dallas. So live-in couples can be jailed for a year if they were , uh, to associate lewd with each other. But you can walk away paying $20 for adultery so you can be dating, but you can't be making out in public. But adultery, $20.
Speaker 2:Now they say lewd. I wonder what lewd means in West Girl.
Speaker 1:You . Oh .
Speaker 2:And she's my cousin .
Speaker 1:I was like, you know , but maybe we're actually gonna talk a little about <laugh> , about what's going on with that. Oh , okay . Never give anesthesia to a woman if you're a male doctor or dentist. West Virginia law states that women can be put under anesthesia only if there's another person apart from the dentist or doctor in the room. Which to that I say Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sounds like there's , there's a roofy problem. <laugh> . Yeah. What's
Speaker 1:Virginia? Why is that a law? <laugh> ? Because something happened. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . West Virginia is a quote . Stand your ground state. You know, just like, yeah.
Speaker 2:Texas,
Speaker 1:Florida. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Uh, but it's , um, it has some pretty stupid laws about open carry. Okay. So here we go. West Virginia State law says that individuals below the age of 21 can carry a switchblade, but it can't be concealed.
Speaker 2:So, like around their neck?
Speaker 1:Yeah . You could just , you're carrying it in your teeth. <laugh> . Right. You're just biting down a switch blade . A switchblade. You can't conceal it. I don't know how they would know if it was concealed.
Speaker 2:Right. That wasn't out in the open, sir. <laugh> and a switchblade. I mean, maybe a pocket knife, but he use
Speaker 1:A switchblade. Right. The Swiss do <laugh> .
Speaker 2:And the <laugh>.
Speaker 1:You can't be Swiss in , in West Virginia. That's the thing. Oh, that's
Speaker 2:The other law. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah . Well, that , I just made that up. As I typically make all of our things up here, I feel if nothing here is factual, probably.
Speaker 2:I feel like half this list is not factual.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? Are you from West Virginia? Right in? Is it true? Can you, can you eat a skunk? I gotta know You got
Speaker 2:Plates . <laugh> .
Speaker 1:And don't slap it unless it's Sunday <laugh> . All right . Do you wanna get into the story? Let's do it. Okay. So we're gonna talk about some people and some things and some things that happened, and then some other things that happened.
Speaker 2:But no geography.
Speaker 1:Well, it's in West Virginia. Okay.
Speaker 2:But no triangle. So
Speaker 1:If you're not from America, it's like in the middle of this country. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> ish . Yeah. In the, in the Appalachian. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> area. That's the Appalachian Mountains. That's where you get murdered. Yeah. All right . The trans Allegheny lunatic asylum. Dang. Later called the Western State Hospital. <laugh> . I like the first one better.
Speaker 2:We gotta clean up our reputation now. It's the Westin .
Speaker 1:It's the Weston . Oh, I didn't even think about that . How did I not?
Speaker 2:I've stayed at Westin's . You're welcome . You're welcome. Yeah . Well, we're all a little crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this was called a Kirkbride Psychiatric Hospital. So, who's , who's Kirkbride? We're gonna find that
Speaker 2:Out. That's a good question.
Speaker 1:It was operated from 1864 until 1994.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. Long run.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That was not 10 years ago. <laugh> for those of us in our forties, <laugh> . Oh,
Speaker 2:It feels like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That was the year after I graduated high school.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. You're much, much, much older than I'm,
Speaker 1:I was in high school in the eighties. I was 1989. I was a freshman.
Speaker 2:1994. I was a freshman.
Speaker 1:I'm old af Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah . <laugh> still we're alive. It's amazing. <laugh> . So it operated from 1864 until 1994 by the government of the United States of <laugh> , West Virginia .
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Oh , really? Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's in a city called Westin . Makes sense.
Speaker 2:Makes sense. Okay .
Speaker 1:Yeah. The Western Hotel. It's not the ,
Speaker 2:There's no affiliation.
Speaker 1:No, definitely. No. Okay. <laugh> Western State Hospital got its name in 1913, which , uh, was used while patients occupied it, but was changed back to its original commissioned, unused name. The Trans Allegheny Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
Speaker 2:Okay. So many .
Speaker 1:It's mouthfuls. So many words.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It feels like they need acronyms. You're
Speaker 1:Living there . Acronyms . It's like you Yeah. The TALA . Yeah. The Taylor . The Taylor . I'm making it up. <laugh>. So it was then later reopened, like past 1994 as a tourist attraction <laugh>.
Speaker 2:You can like the people that like go and view <laugh> , view executions. <laugh> . Yeah . It's ,
Speaker 1:It's a real problem.
Speaker 2:Wow . Well, and kids will break into places like that. So you might as well charge 'em a, you know, buck , a buck a pop . So they're , it's ridiculous. It's, it's now a place you can go visit, or it was when Yeah.
Speaker 1:Both of those. Okay. So we're gonna , we're , yeah. We'll get into that. Designed by Gothic revival and Tudor Revival styles by Baltimore architect, Richard Snowden Andrews.
Speaker 2:Ooh .
Speaker 1:I don't think there's any relation to that other Trader <laugh> . It was constructed from 1858 to 1881. It took a long time to build this dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh , it was originally designed to hold 250 people. It became overcrowded in the 1950s, the 2,400 patients. Wow .
Speaker 2:Oh yeah . Wait, wait, what was that first number?
Speaker 1:250.
Speaker 2:And it went to 2000. Yeah . Ah , okay. All right .
Speaker 1:Where are the , for all you math people out there, you're probably mouthing how many times bigger that is. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Where are the fire marshals?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, they were probably in the asylum. Okay. Yeah. Locked up. Yeah. It's forcibly closed in 1994. <laugh> duh .
Speaker 2:Forcibly closed <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So , uh, it was bought later , uh, by, in 2007, by this guy named Joe Jordan. Uh , it's open for tours and events if you wanna have get married Your wedding.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Hmm .
Speaker 1:Where we'll talk about what happened there. I don't wanna get married there ever. So, my main research is , um, based on this book called Lunatic the Rise and Fall of an American Asylum by Edward s Gleason. So , before we get into why the asylum was created, we have to go back , back to the way back machine to the 17th century.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We're transporting, we're getting on the crime express and we're moving in the 17th century Europe , people who behaved in a certain way Mm . Were considered possessed by the devil.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah . We've talked about this
Speaker 1:Before. Demons or witches. Yep .
Speaker 2:Or have epilepsy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Treatments. Oh, wait till I have you read the reasons you can be <laugh> , uh, uh, brought into the asylum for check-in. Okay. Yes. You're gonna be like, stop.
Speaker 2:That's me. That's me,
Speaker 1:That's me . That's , I literally, I own the place now. <laugh> . So their treatments for all these ailments were brutal. And that's being nice about it.
Speaker 2:And just so y'all know, Jen is doing a lot, quote the air , quote , quote quotes, air quotes . Yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't see that because this is a podcast
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Thank goodness you can't see anything that's,
Speaker 1:You don't wanna see what I look like this morning. I did manage to get some mascara slapped on this face, but other , otherwise I looked like I got hit by a train yesterday. <laugh> . I gotta find that train. Alright . So it was the crime train. Alright . A common practice was to drill holes in people's heads. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> using a corkscrew type thing. Wow . To release the Damons Wow .
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Oh , so they can fly outta the side of your
Speaker 1:We could do that later this afternoon.
Speaker 2:Yeah . That'd be so fun.
Speaker 1:So fun with
Speaker 2:A drill , like a corkscrew.
Speaker 1:So, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Ooh . That's worse than the dentist. Yeah. Yeah. And because this was so fun. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you were asking about this. Yeah . Common folk were invited to watch, said release of the Damons. What
Speaker 2:Kinda weirdos, or it's like,
Speaker 1:I , you know, when you, there's like, there's like studio seating, right? Oh , like theater seating. It like goes up. Yeah . The doctors there with the headlamp. Ooh . Looking over.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I like that. Yeah. That's fun. So moving forward to the late 16 hundreds was the Salem witchcraft. Hysteria. Right. Everybody's insane.
Speaker 2:I feel like that should come back. It should make a revival.
Speaker 1:We should do that here in our town.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's start
Speaker 1:It. Everybody's a witch.
Speaker 2:She's a witch.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Except that we're gonna kill people who aren't witches. Yeah . We're gonna flip it. We're gonna flip the script. So, typically, insane people we're just executed. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Well , yeah .
Speaker 1:You just go. Yeah. So basically, I would've been executed <laugh> fun when I was six. They're like that one. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 2:Drill. Drill the demons out. Yep .
Speaker 1:Well, science showed up in the 18th century <laugh> . <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Thank goodness.
Speaker 1:Science. So fun. <laugh> . It lessened the fears of Satan. But, but the treatment of insane people was still barbaric. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . They're still doing all the things. And
Speaker 2:It was very experimental. There wasn't a lot of people coming around to check your practices. Well,
Speaker 1:They didn't, they didn't think it was experimental, though. They're like, this is cutting edge. Yeah. Literally. Ugh . Yeah. So , uh, most insino were just called the quote village idiot. <laugh> , to which I say they're all in my neighborhood. <laugh>. They could hang out in the streets and beg or whatever, as long as they behaved.
Speaker 2:Uh , yeah. And don't curse and
Speaker 1:Yeah. Don't, yeah. Wait till Sunday to slap people. Okay . So a lot of times they were just dumped in some town and became someone else's problem. Yeah. We're gonna just let Johnny be over there.
Speaker 2:Larry is just walking the streets . The
Speaker 1:Original Gary Gary. Mm-Hmm . Yep . Some families did take care of their own village idiots, but most of them just got dumped off.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:We don't wanna be embarrassed by those crazy peoples.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's because
Speaker 1:They're embarrassing. Yeah. Don't fix 'em. Just
Speaker 2:Stick 'em somewhere. Stick.
Speaker 1:Just put 'em somewhere else. So a lot of times , um, their loving family members Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> would , um, stash the, the people, the , uh, the crazies in the attic, or pigpens or even holes in the ground. <laugh>. Just sit over there, Johnny.
Speaker 2:That's Gary's hole. <laugh>. That one's yours.
Speaker 1:You know, what's going on. So in the 1770s, the colonials started to build facilities to store the insane <laugh> .
Speaker 2:<laugh> like a storage unit. It's a
Speaker 1:Storage unit. Yeah. You've got 17 CI like it. <laugh> . Don't lose your key. So, quote , the first lunatic asylum was open in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1773. Virginia, taking it, taking it, taking it in there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So, these institutions were designed solely to remove the individual from society, not to help him or her regain control of their lives.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Well, if you're dragging somebody out of the attic to store them somewhere else,
Speaker 1:Or the hole.
Speaker 2:Yeah. <laugh> the Gary hole. You
Speaker 1:Gotta get
Speaker 2:<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah . You gotta get outta the hole, Gary.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're not on a path to recovery here .
Speaker 1:Yeah. We gotta put you behind a gate. Now, <laugh> , the late 18th century brought the age of enlightenment. I don't know where it went. Yeah . <laugh> , it went somewhere else because we <laugh> we're not there anymore. Men, like Benjamin Rush, a doctor played an important role in the, in asylums, in like the building of, in asylums, and then mental health reform. You're yawning already. I'm
Speaker 2:Sorry, that's, yeah. No, I wanna hear about this.
Speaker 1:Uh , you do. Yes. <laugh> , you definitely do. He opened his first clinic in Philadelphia and advocated for the humane treatment of people with mental health conditions.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well,
Speaker 1:Way to be a human.
Speaker 2:Wow. That sounds pretty progressive. I mean , so
Speaker 1:Yeah. Don't just push him off the bridge. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a good guy.
Speaker 1:Some of his practices are bizarre, but he was considered the father of American psychiatry.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:All right . Dad. He believed mental health problems were in the blood.
Speaker 2:Oh , yep .
Speaker 1:And conducted bloodletting practices. Oh ,
Speaker 2:Wow . Mr . I spoke too soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If they pass out, they can't be , uh, affecting our cra or the craziness of the environment or something.
Speaker 2:So just blood blooded him . Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Uh, so in theory , um, his conditions were, or he, he , his theory was that these conditions were brought about by four circulation <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:To which I say, that's why I think I'm insane. I have terrible circulation.
Speaker 2:It's like watching one of those commercials where they're advertising, do you have itchy legs from time to time? Do your eyes blink? I'm like, yes.
Speaker 1:Do your eyes blink?
Speaker 2:They're like, you might have hippo stenosis. I do have hippo DNOs .
Speaker 1:<laugh> . Take this pill. Yeah. Yes. But , um, death might result. Yeah . Side effects . Call your doctor if you've died. <laugh>, they'll just tell you you're insane. So while Dr. Rush was moving and shaking a bloodletting, another me mental health advocate was , uh, coming along and her name was Dorothy Dix .
Speaker 2:No,
Speaker 1:Not the same Dorothea, like from before. Okay . She's not making bookcases. She's, we actually like her. Okay. <laugh> . She grew up poor, non-educated and basically raised her siblings. So this is , you know, the ,
Speaker 2:The 18 ,
Speaker 1:18 hundreds of it time . Yeah . So , uh, she, she was raising her siblings until the age of 13 when her aunt was like, Hey, 13-year-old, who's raising toddlers? <laugh> , come live with me.
Speaker 2:Wow. Where have you been? Aunt ? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where have you been? Well, they didn't have like, phones and internet back then. Okay.
Speaker 2:So,
Speaker 1:Like , she couldn't, like, Hey, mom and dad died last week. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:It'd be really nice if I could get an adult here.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying, I'm just saying, yeah . Could help out maybe with the food. So, despite having no formal education, she actually opened her own private , um, school in Warchester, Massachusetts. I probably pronounce that wrong. Sorry. Massachusetts people .
Speaker 2:No, I can tell you because I'm, I've,
Speaker 1:You're from there.
Speaker 2:No, it's Worcester.
Speaker 1:Worcester . Oh, that's right. Yes. It's Worcester. It's spelled W-O-R-C-E. I'm not gonna try to Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . W Worcester.
Speaker 2:Wor they say Worcester. Worcester . But it's Worcester.
Speaker 1:Okay . So she opened a private school in Wisa , Massachusetts. There you go.
Speaker 2:I did it. Right. Yeah. Good job . Wedding .
Speaker 1:Five years later, she opened another one in Boston. I can say that one. Boston. Boston. Boy . There's a W in Boston. So she had a life-changing event in 1841 when she visited a local jail in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, as in all the jails in America at the time. The insane were just thrown in with the homicidal people.
Speaker 2:Ah, good. Great combination.
Speaker 1:Teamwork makes the dream work. <laugh> , <laugh> , they're naked, chained to walls. Oh , the walls are cold. Yeah. The place is cold. There's, there's not electricity, there's, it just sucks. Wow. Right . So they're in the dingy, dark. It's all gray. It's terrible. It's that creepy vision You get where they're like in the corner and their hair's scraggly.
Speaker 2:There's a skeleton and chains next to 'em .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Steve died last week. <laugh> . It's so, she spent the rest of her life correcting this atrocity, or attempting to, anyway, had a girl. She's like, what is happening? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Somebody should pay attention to this, I guess I'll
Speaker 1:Bad. Yeah. Bad things. So she used her family connections. So her aunt, they're like, big time . For some reason, even though it took 'em a while to,
Speaker 2:To find, collect
Speaker 1:The kids ,
Speaker 2:The children living in the hills, eating skunks,
Speaker 1:<laugh> . What is going on? Yeah. She, well, the vehicles were moving much slower back then. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So it took a couple times to hit the skunk. But anyway, so , uh, she used her immense connections, and then she got with the newspaper people, and she shamed the Massachusetts state legis legislature into authorizing funds to help said people chain to the walls and the jails.
Speaker 2:That seems like that should be a law.
Speaker 1:They're like, fine. Dorothea.
Speaker 2:We'll , quit having our road . That's
Speaker 1:All right . We'll do something with those people. <laugh> . They just, I can't see 'em. It's not happening. Yeah . Athletes . Ugh . So she traveled around the world in her life. She caught the eye of this guy named Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. So you remember I told you at the beginning, you probably don't remember Kirkbride. The Kirkbride facilities was like the standard, the standard for asylums. If there was, why is that a thing?
Speaker 2:<laugh> ,
Speaker 1:Standard for an asylum? I
Speaker 2:Feel like this is a very personal one for you.
Speaker 1:Well, I grew up in an asylum. Okay. I'm one of these people, <laugh> . So, Dr. Kirkbride felt the same way as Dorothea. He had a soul. We have a soul, bro. Alright . So he went about the world also and the United States to collaborate with local leaders and develop insane asylums that would help to rehabilitate the mentally ill. Uh, because they're not criminals. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Well, unless they're with the <laugh> the criminal, in the same ,
Speaker 1:Unless they are crimin criminals, then they're criminal. But before that, they're not criminals. Yeah. So, Dr. Kirkbride was born from a Quaker family in 1809. And because his father thought he was too frail for farming, send him to <laugh> . Send him to a private school. Yeah. You're not gonna make it kid. You're
Speaker 2:Gonna have to do some learning. Yeah. Be big in the brain.
Speaker 1:So Thomas eventually became a doctor. As he's became doctor . He couldn't , that wasn't his first name. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:<laugh> . That's an idea.
Speaker 1:I know. I think people have actually done that. So eventually gaining residency at the Quaker Run Friends asylum for the insane,
Speaker 2:Oh, let's put a sunshine on the front of the building.
Speaker 1:Scrubbed in sunshine for the insane <laugh> <laugh> . And so that was in Frankfort, Pennsylvania, just outside Philly. Uh , that's Philadelphia. For those of you who aren't in America. Philly. So , uh, that's where the Philly cheese steaks originated.
Speaker 2:I told you, I can't hear the word Philadelphia without automatically singing in West Philadelphia. Born , born , raised
Speaker 1:On
Speaker 2:The playground. <laugh> . I have to, like, work the song out in my head. I love that .
Speaker 1:Until I can , well, I woke up this morning to the, what did I text you this morning? Instead of , uh,
Speaker 2:Rise and shine.
Speaker 1:Breaking up is hard to do. Waking up is hard to do. <laugh> , now you're gonna have that in your head all day. You're welcome. <laugh> , waking up is hard to do. Yeah , I did . I had to give the coffee to the young one. The 12-year-old. Don't judge me.
Speaker 2:Hey , I'm not judging my 11-year-old is .
Speaker 1:Yeah . Oh , well , you know, you gotta start those addictions early <laugh> . Yeah. So he quickly, so Dr. Kirkbride quickly gained respect and went on to develop what's known as the Kirkbride plan. Okay. His plan involved building a large loose v-shaped building. And when you look at it from overhead, it's, it's a u it's not a VI don't know about the letters back in that in the 18 hundreds, but, Hmm .
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's not a V, but that's beside the point. So it was a loose, a loose v-shaped building that lets lots of sunlight and fresh air. Oh,
Speaker 2:How cool. What a great idea.
Speaker 1:I know. I was like, I wanna live there, <laugh> . Maybe I did. You'll never know. Will you <laugh> ? So , um, they, his goal was to get the mentally ill back into society.
Speaker 2:And that's, I mean, that's the first time that people, instead of just storing them away, or like, Hey, let's do some in a hole . Yeah. Let's, let's try to help them. Maybe
Speaker 1:We help them. Hmm .
Speaker 2:Good plan.
Speaker 1:I like that idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's my , my doctor personally has that plan too. <laugh> , we , Jen, we're gonna get you back into society so you can make a podcast. That's ridiculous. <laugh> . Thanks , Doug .
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:So , um, side note, Kirkbride actually , uh, oh. So his plan actually influenced over a hundred facilities in North America. Oh, how cool. Yeah. So it's, it's like, it's still a thing, sort of. We don't have asylums, sort of just like orphanages.
Speaker 2:Yeah. <laugh> . Yeah. I was in an orphanage. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:I know. You were you. Poor thing. Well, at least you weren't in one of the Kirkbride facilities. He actually married one of his patients and had a family. So, p to show you that, see, you're judgy. Look at your
Speaker 2:Face . I'm a little judgey .
Speaker 1:You're , she's judging.
Speaker 2:I feel like
Speaker 1:There's , that person was insane. And she's thinking the doctor took advantage of the patient, but maybe he healed her.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's a Hippo Hippocratic oath issue .
Speaker 1:You're a
Speaker 2:Hypocrite. Yeah, <laugh> . Anyway, carry on.
Speaker 1:Hey, people can be rehabilitated like me. Oh,
Speaker 2:I agree. People can be rehabil.
Speaker 1:Look at me.
Speaker 2:I quite frankly thought he was married to Dorothea <laugh> .
Speaker 1:No, he's not married to Dorothy. He, he married one of his patients.
Speaker 2:Okay .
Speaker 1:They raised a family.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:She's so judgy. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know what her name is. Mrs. Kirkbride. <laugh>. <laugh> . The mrs. Shifting gears and moving to our main story about the trans Allegheny Insane asylum. In 1858, the government of Virginia realized they needed a third mental institution. Oh, wow. Because they had a report that stated that they had 922 lunatics <laugh>. This is in a report, a state funded report, <laugh> 922 lunatics, and 945 idiots <laugh> in the state of Virginia.
Speaker 2:It seems like a low number.
Speaker 1:<laugh> . How much has changed?
Speaker 2:I'm surprised the idiots don't outnumber the
Speaker 1:The lunatics.
Speaker 2:The lunatics, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right . So someone went around <laugh> at the census counting the idiots.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The
Speaker 1:Census people
Speaker 2:Were <laugh> .
Speaker 1:So the census is like <laugh> . We've got the father, and we've got the wife, Mrs. Father. And then we've got <laugh> three idiots, two normal ones,
Speaker 2:And a lunatic.
Speaker 1:And one lunatic. But she's in the back <laugh> .
Speaker 2:And they're
Speaker 1:Old . She's in the hole . How is this a report on the top from the state of Virginia, United States Report number 5 6 7 3 2 C two <laugh> reports. <laugh> , Virginia. What are you doing in the 18 hundreds? <laugh> ?
Speaker 2:I like that they report it's <laugh> .
Speaker 1:I wanna have a new report about that. <laugh>. Oh, I love the 18 hundreds of all of this. Okay. So the Virginia government needed to place a new asylum in the west side of the state, west of the Allegheny mountain chain. So , uh, hence the Trans Allegheny Lunatic asylum. So a commission was appointed <laugh>? No , based on the report. There's so many idiots. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:I'm the vice chair of lunatics, the reporting secretary on idiots.
Speaker 1:All right . So this is , so the commission was appointed <laugh> . There's, I love this. The whole thing of this <laugh> , they looked at , all right . So they looked at Fayetteville, Virginia, Sutton, Virginia, and then Weston Virginia <laugh> . Okay.
Speaker 2:Yes . Those
Speaker 1:Were their three options . I'm getting busy from my, from the laughing. Yeah . So, well, the rich folks in Richmond, Virginia had the purse strings. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . They were like, well, we ain't putting it here.
Speaker 2:No, thank you.
Speaker 1:It's gotta go over there. Yeah . In the west portion of our state where the riffraff and the idiots go. <laugh> . So , uh, this made the west, the , the , the Western Virginia folks mad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're like, why y'all putting all your idiots over here, <laugh> , we don't want your idiots. So this rich guy named Jonathan Bennett , he donated hospitals, schools, railroads. He's like, monopoly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You get a railroad, you get a , get a railroad road . Do not pass . Go . Do not collect $200 <laugh> . Put your idiots in this hole. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:I just can't even with these people. I love you, Virginia. You're silly. Jonathan Bennetts donating all these things. Right. And he became the first mayor of what later became the incorporated Westin Virginia. Okay. Okay. Long story short, anyway, what Virginia divided, and now there's Virginia and West Virginia. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . Just like the Carolinas that happened. Yeah . Yeah. So, Bennet another rich guy, and another , another rich guy named George Arnold pushed hard for the asylum to be in the town of West and West Virginia. And so now we've, we've become West Virginia. I'm gonna gloss over how that happened. Yeah . Because it's not important. So they got the town people to paint the walls. They were like, Hey, we need this asylum to come here because money, we like money and fences, and paint the walls and mend your fences and get those pigs out of the road and bring 'em on over here. They need to be. Okay . So the, the government came in the , uh, the committee,
Speaker 2:The idiot committee,
Speaker 1:The idiot committee, <laugh>, the idiot committee showed up in town and they were like, this place is fancy. Let's bring it here. So they, 'cause at they got it looking, looking good. The pigs were
Speaker 2:Spiffed it up a
Speaker 1:Bit. Mind . Yeah. They minding their business. Oinking over there. Yeah. Where they should be. Got a oink in the right place. Unfortunately, a flood happened, washed away all their work <laugh> right before the unannounced visit of Dorothy, who was now the mama of mental health. Oh , okay. So she shows up and she's like, we can't stash any idiots here. <laugh>. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:This is gross.
Speaker 1:She saw squalor and pigs rooting up in the streets and run down houses and turned her nose up and said, Nope. But the idiot committee was like , um, we saw like white houses and like pick offenses and stuff. I don't know what you saw, Dorothy, but we're doing it.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the idiot committee over overrode Dorothy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was a unanimous vote by the idiot committee. <laugh> funding went straight to Westin <laugh> and began the trans Allegheny lunatic asylum construction. Alright . The location of the asylum would be on the banks of the West Fork of the way for it . Oh , Manon , Gallaghan River. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:The
Speaker 1:Manum , the Manila man
Speaker 2:Phenomenon River.
Speaker 1:If you're from West Virginia, I'm so sorry. <laugh>. That's I am, it's my, it's me, not you. No,
Speaker 2:That's, that's whoever named the river.
Speaker 1:It was probably , um, native Americans. Maybe it was
Speaker 2:One of the idiots.
Speaker 1:It probably means idiots reside here. <laugh> , <laugh> River. Just All right . So it's just of the roof from Weston . Okay. So the state purchased 269 acres for just under a hundred thousand dollars, which in today's time is 3.5 million ish. Hot Dallas . Dr. Kurt Bride was the four most authority. He's author <laugh> of the asylums. They hired an architect named Richard Andrews, but Richard Snowden Andrews, no relation , uh, to build the facility that would hold 250 patients. They broke ground on the facility in the fall of 1858. So like right around our time, the fall when it's humid. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , it had an estimated cost of just under $400,000. That's like 7 million now. Okay . Yeah. Ish . The very first laborers were African American convicts sent . So they're the happy to be there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So happy. Yeah . Yeah . Sent by the gov by Governor Weiss from Richmond. One dark night in April, eight of the 23 workers escaped from their quarters. Yeah. What else are you gonna do when you get shipped on over to Idiot Bill <laugh> ? You just follow the river. What
Speaker 2:Happened? The rest of 'em , they were just
Speaker 1:Like, oh . They just were like, oh , we'll just stay. Yeah. So they headed , uh, they were heading up to the free state of Ohio, because states weren't always free back then. Yeah . Because
Speaker 2:I remember that
Speaker 1:In history . Idiots ran the country. Yep . The idiots should . Yeah . Anyway , anyway, they got lost and were recaptured. Mm-Hmm . The govern , the governor then hired paid workers.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's a fascinating concept. <laugh> to work alongside the convicts. Yeah. So they got to building the limestone building in the spring of 1861. One section of the asylum, though unfinished, was ready to receive patience.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Okay .
Speaker 1:We don't need it to have all the walls. We just need some walls. Yeah. So the foundation for the next wing had just been completed when on Sunday, June 30th, 1861, citizens of Wessin were awoken , awakened, awoken , awoken , woken up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Woked woke. They got woke. <laugh>. They was woked by the sounds of drums, fifes and t Trumps of soldiers marching into town from the North
Speaker 2:Fifes. You don't hear that? Yeah. Oh , I know it's a flute of some type. But you
Speaker 1:Don't , you gotta keep the left, left your left right. Left the seventh Ohio Infantry had come to Weston . Do you know what I'm talking about? At this point, west end of Virginia, we're still one state. But in about 15 minutes, Colonel Eeb Tyler had ordered his troops. It's the
Speaker 2:Civil War <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:In case you weren't following along with what was happening in America. <laugh> . So in 15 minutes, Colonel Tyler ordered his troops through town to arrest all the known Confederate sympathizers. Uh , Tyler's, forward guard occupied the principal buildings in Weston , including the new wing of the asylum. Hey, we just built this for you guys. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Come on in.
Speaker 1:Idiots. Come on in.
Speaker 2:That's right. We, we had a ribbon cutting ceremony about 10 minutes ago. It
Speaker 1:Was so good. Yeah. We're , we didn't build this for you, but you can take over. And also the courthouse and also the Bailey Hotel. Mm-Hmm . Awesome . Tyler's men then went to the bank, which held $30,000 to pay the wages for the asylum workers, and they took the money. All right . How do they get in there? So let's, the bank teller <laugh> , the bank was inside his house, <laugh> <laugh> . So it was easy for them to get in there. Yeah . And he actually slept over the bank vault so he could hear people coming in. So , uh, so he requested, so they came in , it seems like
Speaker 2:A stressful living environ environment. It was really
Speaker 1:Stressful back in the 18 hundreds. Wow . I'm glad that I was born in the seventies, man. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So , uh, the soldiers came in and they were like, we taking you money Bross. And he was like, okay, can you please leave $2,371 and 23 cents, because I've gotta pay the workers who were building the asylum. And they're like, fine. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:That's very specific. It was
Speaker 1:$2,371 and 23 cents <laugh> . Oh, well , I like it so much. Could
Speaker 2:You imagine being one of the people that was working alongside the people that were getting paid? Hey, hey , I know we're in the middle of slavery.
Speaker 1:Listen,
Speaker 2:But
Speaker 1:We've gotta bring these idiots here. Yeah. So the story is like, I know it's awkward. Yeah. And you did try to escape and you brought, but we're still not gonna pay, but we're gonna pay these other people. So we had to make sure that the soldiers from the Civil War, that's about you. And also not you get paid, you have to pay them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . It's
Speaker 2:Circle. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't be mad <laugh> , sorry. But if you are, we're gonna lock you up here in this asylum after it's built that you built. I like America. Mm-Hmm . We're dumb. So they left the amount that $2,371 and 23 cents.
Speaker 2:23 cents. Don't miss a penny.
Speaker 1:Don't you miss that penny? Uh , all right . So , uh, so anyway, they left the money, took the rest stating that they wanted the money, but that Weston could , could keep their lunatics. That's fine. <laugh>
Speaker 2:Sounds like a good deal. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:It's the New Deal. Yeah. <laugh> . That's the actual new deal. Ah , okay . Somehow the money went to fund the quote , new state of Virginia, which officially became West Virginia in 1863. So, so we're not quite West Virginia yet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But we do become that later. And by we, I mean them, this strategic location actually has the future President McKinley. Remember when I told you McKinley? I love McKinley. So, yeah, let's go back to episode. I'll tell you about what episode it was later in , in , but , uh, so pre the future President McKinley and what ? Rutherford b Hayes. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Were here. So remember back in the day I told you that he got in his , uh, he got his mule and he got the fu the food, and he tromped into battle.
Speaker 2:Yes . Yes . This
Speaker 1:Is where it was. Oh . Oh , no way. Yeah . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . He was just a , uh, he was a commissioned officer, but for some reason he was also like a low, lower ranking enlisted person, but he was a, he was a cook. So , uh, so anyway, that's where these guys, so McKinley and Hayes are actually stationed at this location. Like right around this time the war raged on . And in 1864 with the Confederacy dying, Raiders stole another $5,287 and 85 cents from the same bank teller again.
Speaker 2:Oh , I know. That's a bad setup though, in fairness.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Later on, they did move the bank to an actual building. Oh, well that's good. Yeah. Out of his house. Okay. <laugh> . Then they moved to the partially built asylum and stole their food, clothes , and blankets. Oh , how sweet . That was for the patients. <laugh> , you gotta do what you gotta do in war. You know what I'm saying? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , at this point, the asylum had be been renamed the West Virginia Asylum for the insane. That's a lot more letters. The local people banded together and replaced the items that were stolen. Oh , that was so good. I know. Autumn of 1864, the asylum officially opened, and nine patients were brought in from Ohio. Okay. Yeah. Then another 23 patients came in. Sadly, when the patients died, they were stored on shelves in a stone house that acted as a morgue. Your face is fascinating. Wow. They just , her mouth is hanging wide open. They just , as I told you, I told you that your face would be hanging wide open. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I'm a I'm
Speaker 1:A little, yeah . Yeah. We're getting into it now. Uhhuh . Yep . They had to be placed in there during the winters because the ground was too hard to dig <laugh> , you know, for the hole .
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I guess they're preserved if it gets cold enough, I
Speaker 1:Don't know . Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative>
Speaker 1:Just stack Steve on top of <laugh> . Willie dead <laugh> . I don't know what the names were back then. Actually, I do know the names of the people back then in this area, but we'll talk about that later. The asylum grew and helped the state become financially secure, and that's why everybody wanted it to go to Westin . Like they, they saw the dollars. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , because people gotta work there. They gotta build the things. They gotta , they gotta supply the stuff. Yeah . It's a business. Yep . It's a business. So fi So , uh, they became financially secure and in fact, in 1916, it had the most money of any state funded facility in the state of West Virginia.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We rich over in west and y'all <laugh> in the winter of 1866, there were 45 patients. There were patients of all ages from an 8-year-old who was unceremoniously dropped off at the train station having been insane since he was three.
Speaker 2:Oh .
Speaker 1:His mom just dropped him off. Like, see ya , good
Speaker 2:Luck. Here's your snack pack . <laugh> , here's your apple.
Speaker 1:See you .
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Lunchables and applesauce. The oldest patient was 93. Light and water were a problem because electricity. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , most things were invented out of like thin air. They just, they just started bringing water in from somewhere and they just would light things with just , they could , they were just trying to do the best they could, is what I'm saying. Yeah . Yeah . By 1868, construction continued, but they had almost 200 patients.
Speaker 2:Oh , okay.
Speaker 1:So they're almost at max capacity. Yeah , because it was built for 250 patients. So in 1869, a year later, there were 75 insane people waiting to get in. Oh, okay . So we're at 275 are waiting math's gotta be
Speaker 2:A pretty interesting wait list over number. Yes . Yeah . <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:You're gonna make it. I don't know,
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 1:So the newspaper actually started to complain because Dr. Kirkbride really wanted a beautiful, nice calming retreat for people to get healthy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But, so they were worried about like koi ponds and like wallpaper
Speaker 2:And stuff like that. Yeah . And not getting enough .
Speaker 1:And the newspaper was like, how about you build more rooms? <laugh> ? They were like, nah . So, so at this time, because they want , he wanted, Kirkbride wanted to have all the fresh air and all of the sunlight. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> and those butterflies and rainbows. It was thought at this time that noxious air caused mental problems, to which I say, yeah,
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah . Yeah, yeah . I mean, was that a problem?
Speaker 1:Well, obviously it was noxious air . There's a lot of pollution back then.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . I don't know . Okay.
Speaker 1:I didn't live back then. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I, I
Speaker 1:Was born two years later. <laugh> , I dunno , <laugh> . I mean, it's still true. You go to LA you're gonna die. Yeah . The molecules like, don't even fit in your nostril. They're so big. You're like,
Speaker 2:I thought the sky was blue. It looks so gray. <laugh> black . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> .
Speaker 1:We live in space. So the workers were obsessed with air circulation. They eventually added 15 miles of ventilation pipes.
Speaker 2:Wow. That's
Speaker 1:A lot of miles.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because
Speaker 1:This thing is only like, it's only, it's on like 269 acres. But that's
Speaker 2:What I was wondering is I wonder how many <laugh> , I mean, that would be like tip to tip it sounds like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just the tip. So the <laugh>, I think the whole thing ended up being like a half a mile wide. Okay . The whole facility itself, like after it was finally completed, a million years later, <laugh> like two years ago. So , uh, the facility was being built de uh, and despite the emancipation proclamation, which freed African-Americans, blacks and whites still had to be separated because America's dumb.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It took , took a while to, I mean, we're still not there, but
Speaker 1:Go ahead. My eyes are literally stuck in the back of my head. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> from rolling them in 1873, they finally built the building that would house the African Americans. Awesome. Built by African Americans. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Without pay.
Speaker 1:Ugh . At this point, the state's asylum population was over a thousand <laugh>. So, but only 68 were black. And this was because of racism. So most people like, just killed black people that were crazy.
Speaker 2:Oh , okay. Yeah. Instead
Speaker 1:Of like seeing them as a human and
Speaker 2:Wanting them to get help. Yeah. That makes sense. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:America's dumb <laugh>. I can't say that enough. Okay. So hey, 1873 people, <laugh> , we're all humans. <laugh> . Yeah. Yeah. But you're all dead, so you don't care. In 1881, the West Virginia hospital for the insane was finally complete.
Speaker 2:Okay. Wow. In
Speaker 1:1881, but it wasn't really complete 'cause they kept adding on. Yeah. So it was nearly a quarter of a mile long and contained almost 10 acres of floor space.
Speaker 2:Wow. 10 acres.
Speaker 1:So my yard, if you look out the window, which you can't 'cause you're listening on a podcast, but Paige can. So we're, my acreage is, this is an acre and a half. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So they were 10 acres.
Speaker 2:That's, I mean, of floor space. That sounds like that's a lot of floor space. Yeah. They've got a lot of room.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So , um, a 200 foot clock tower crowned the central section of the six lower Coppola's decorated. Um, it, so the, so the it de they decorated each wing and it had like, beautiful architecture around it. And just, if you can imagine going to Versailles
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Like, or Rome. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . That's what it's looking like. Wow. It's very grand. It's beautiful. It's got high vaulted ceilings. Lots of light coming in. So
Speaker 2:This is a place of healing.
Speaker 1:Yes. I wanna go there. Yeah. Or do I <laugh> It had a thousand windows.
Speaker 2:Oh ,
Speaker 1:That is a lot of windows. My house has like eight windows.
Speaker 2:That sounds amazing though.
Speaker 1:It does. They did have bars on 'em . 'cause you know, <laugh> can't have the people escaping downtown . <laugh> <laugh> . So there was even an underground railway to move food and supplies. And I'm gonna post the pictures. There's lots of pictures in the book that I was using to, to research this. There's it, it's just like, you imagine there's like a little cave and then Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> A little railroad that goes under, because remember the mayor is the guy like donating hospitals and railroads. Yeah . So he sticks a railroad underneath there. It's got a little cart. It transports the food, the linens. Oh , that's so
Speaker 2:Smart.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The people, the , it's really cool . The dead bodies. Yeah . Steve , the hand is flopping. Yeah . You know all the things. Yeah. Who was , uh, the , the , uh, Russian granny? She'd love this place.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. I get my pot.
Speaker 1:I get my pot . I hit you in head. <laugh>. So there was, there was an underground railroad and then the surrounding area of Lewis County was thriving. They're like, yeah, this is our jam man. Bring in all those idiots. Let's do it. Yeah. The hospital was like a little town on its own though . It was really cool. So at this point there was over 700 patients nearly triple the amount of the total , um, that was initially proposed. Yeah. But like the surrounding area, they had like their own farm. They had cows and horses. How cool. And ponies. They had a whole farm with carrots and fruits and vegetables and the whole thing. Okay . I mean, it's awesome. It's, it's super, it's super awesome. Most of the new patients were shipped in from jails where they'd been , uh, for like years or decades. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> just living the best life. That's right. Living , living that best life. Most. So at this point, the treatments were still like, bordering on bizarre to, to help help most of the patients were diagnosed with chronic mania. <laugh> , also known as parenting <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've, I feel like I'm suffering from that. What's, what's the treatment? Electroshock
Speaker 1:It . When your eyes start switching, you know that you've, you've become a parent. <laugh> . So most of the patients were diagnosed with chronic mania and all, all-inclusive diagnosis meaning , um, the, that it just wasn't known what your problem was. You got something We
Speaker 2:Can't quite put our finger on it. So we're we're
Speaker 1:Gonna put it in quote. Yeah . You're just an idiot. We're
Speaker 2:Gonna put you in the idiot box.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But , uh, whatever it was, whatever it was it , you gotta go necessitated the , their removal from society immediately. A majority probably had PTSD from the recent Civil War.
Speaker 2:Oh, that makes so much sense. Yeah . Oh, let's lock 'em up. Yeah , that's a great idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah. That's legit. Yeah. Wow . Some of the diagnosis diagnoses were <laugh> death of sons in war. These are like what they're diagnosed with. So you can be diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis. Yeah . Or death of sons in war.
Speaker 2:<laugh> What?
Speaker 1:Decoyed into the army. Excitement as officer, which I totally get. I was an officer in the military and you get real excited. What ? You gotta save people. <laugh> , explosion of a shell nearby exposure in the army. <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 1:Just being in the army. Yeah . You're diagnosed with being in the army. <laugh> , which it's still still
Speaker 2:Legit .
Speaker 1:Today's, I mean , it's , that's a
Speaker 2:Fair
Speaker 1:Assessment . Fall from <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Oh no . Fall
Speaker 1:From horse in war. Gunshot wound. Or just simply the war.
Speaker 2:The war. Wow. In the army, in the war. I fell off my horse. I'm going to the nuthouse .
Speaker 1:You were in America in the 18 hundreds. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:What the heck? I know. That's everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So opium abuse, reared its ugly head. Head and an upswing in narcotics addiction and liberal morphine use in the latter part of the 19th century dominated the West Virginia landscape. So many questions are being answered just by this podcast alone. Yeah , you are welcome. By conservative estimate, the US had around 200,000 drug addicts by the end of the 19th century. Mm .
Speaker 2:Good
Speaker 1:Winning morphine addiction was considered the army disease.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1:It's, I like that. Nothing has changed. Yeah. This is great. Wow . We're doing a great job, guys. It's an estimated nearly 10 million opium. Did I say million ? You did, I said that. Yeah. 10 million mm-Hmm. Opium treated pills were administered to union soldiers.
Speaker 2:Oh, good. So when they get home and they go cold Turkey, they're crazy.
Speaker 1:Opium wasn't just used for pain, it was also used for dysentery. Oh , and malaria. Stop it. <laugh> . That's not what opium is for. I don't know what it's for, but it's not for that
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Wow.
Speaker 1:I've never used opium before.
Speaker 2:I've never had malaria before. So I'm Are you
Speaker 1:Addicted to opium? Right . In <laugh>. Did you use opium for malaria in the 18 hundreds? Right . In <laugh> drug addiction wasn't understood back then.
Speaker 2:<laugh> shock. Duh .
Speaker 1:So when the government turned off, the drug donation pipes withdraw happened to thousands of people. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And that induced psychotic episodes.
Speaker 2:Oh , how crazy.
Speaker 1:<laugh> . It's a literal lot . It , it's a horrifying social experiment. Yeah. Like, okay. Like if you wanna research something that the government did to people Q anon, people go to the 18 hundreds of it. Yep . Because that's when it was really a problem. So some of the war veterans were being admitted for drug addiction. Many were being admitted for sinning,
Speaker 2:<laugh> sinning .
Speaker 1:Their medical diagnosis was immoral life.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> . That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Or n infomania .
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker 1:I don't you don't have that in your forties. Sorry to let you know. Ladies <laugh> . No, you don't have that. A particular concern was sex with oneself.
Speaker 2:That was a concern.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a thought. It was, it , it was thought that the cause of that was insanity. <laugh> . So you're insane if you are having sex with yourself. Okay.
Speaker 2:Maybe
Speaker 1:You just can't get a date.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm just saying, seems like safe sex to me. You can't
Speaker 1:Have sex with others because that's a sin. And you also can't have sex with yourself. <laugh> , who
Speaker 2:Were you gonna have sex with?
Speaker 1:<laugh> .
Speaker 2:Not <laugh> , not West Virginia
Speaker 1:Donkeys. That was, that was a crime.
Speaker 2:But yeah. Not if you're welcome. Not if the donkey's dead on the side of the
Speaker 1:Road. Yeah. So moms, if you wanna turn this off, go ahead and do it for the next 30 seconds. Just go ahead and fast forward. There was also those who had suppressed masturbation. I don't know what that means . So you can't have masturbation, but you also can't suppress it.
Speaker 2:Suppress it . So if it is a natural inclination, you're
Speaker 1:What if you did it in your dreams? So , uh, so that was suppressed masturbation. And then you have <laugh> , deranged masturbation.
Speaker 2:Wow. What does that consist of?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . I can imagine.
Speaker 1:I'm, I , it just, ma it just takes me back to American Horror Story. When they had the asylum, the asylum season. I , I
Speaker 2:Still have ,
Speaker 1:And there's the guy in , you gotta
Speaker 2:Watch it . I know, I know. We started it and then we got sidetracked.
Speaker 1:It's , it's September mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative> . Okay . Perfect
Speaker 1:Time . Just go ahead and watch the asylum one. Just skip over all the other ones. Okay. And just go straight to that one. 'cause you'll be like, oh, now I know what deranged masturbation is.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Oh , good . A hundred percent
Speaker 1:Good . Yep . They've got it in there. All right . So , um, there was one dedicated patient who had performed an epic masturbation for 30 years.
Speaker 2:What? Like ,
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Hashtag weird diagnosis of the 18 hundreds
Speaker 2:Constantly.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I wasn't there. Okay. I don't, I don't , there's no, like video. I dunno . <laugh> . There wasn't a podcast about it back then. So between 1850 and 1880, most medical liter literature used surgery to cure the curse.
Speaker 2:Oh .
Speaker 1:Curing it. Males frequently had their genitals ca cauterized, And some were occasionally castrated. The most common cure for women was to cauterize their clitoris. Or a full removal of all female parts. Oh. Hey. Guess what? They still do that in Africa today. Way to go. People of Africa. By the end of the century, I told you your mouth was gonna be hanging wide open. By the end of the century, doctors had moved to use physical restraint with their hands tied and using like, metal mittens. And this was the opposite of what Dr. Kirkbride had planned. Yeah. He's like, fresh air and rainbows and sunshine, butterflies, <laugh> . And they're like, how about we just chain 'em to the wall again
Speaker 2:And put some iron mitts on them ?
Speaker 1:Mittens.
Speaker 2:Mittens.
Speaker 1:They're not warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 2:They sound like clubs.
Speaker 1:They sound like horrifying things. Adolescents were threatened with general genital mutilation if caught masturbating. Although physical restraints were discouraged by the doctrines of the Kirkbride plan. Many patients, including the non masturbator <laugh> , were placed in mechanical restraints, at least on a temporary basis. But some permanently Oh . Various means were employed. Straight jackets, restrictive mittens with locks. With locks at the wrists. So you couldn't like, bend your wrist
Speaker 2:Or, oh,
Speaker 1:Couldn't bend your
Speaker 2:Or the mittens. So they wouldn't like, scratch people or scratch themselves.
Speaker 1:I like how you think I know what the answer to that question
Speaker 2:Is . Or . Here's our masturbation wing of <laugh> , the hospital.
Speaker 1:They used straps to restrain the motion of the legs. That sounds horrible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I need to curl up into a ball.
Speaker 2:I like, am constantly moving . Shuffling. Yeah . Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why our metabolism is so high. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So , uh, they used leftover rush chairs. That was Dr. Rush from before to immobilize the overly active. And lastly, the controversial Utica crib. What is the Utica crib you ask? The Utica crib was first used by a superintendent at the pre Kirkbride facility in upstate New York. It's a bed. I'm gonna show you a picture of
Speaker 2:It . I feel like this is gonna be awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hold on. I'm gonna show you a picture of it. Okay. We found the bed.
Speaker 2:Oh . So
Speaker 1:Paige is gonna describe it.
Speaker 2:It looks like a metal box. Uh , like imagine a crib with the slack baby crib, a baby crib, sweet
Speaker 1:Little baby crib. But
Speaker 2:It's got a big metal door with bars that come down over it. This
Speaker 1:Look . How , how tall is it? Like,
Speaker 2:It's not very tall and it doesn't look very, I mean, it's long like it's a rectangle, but is it right off the floor ? I can't tell that .
Speaker 1:So the measurements are, it is six feet long. Dorothea Puente would love it. <laugh> , it's six feet long and then the sides of it are only 12 inches. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's very narrow.
Speaker 1:So when you lay down on it and the lid comes down, you can't turn over on your side and you're , you're just laying there like in a coffin.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's exactly what it looks like. If a coffin was made of metal and had slats, and it's not like there's a mattress on the bottom. It's just like metal slats . Yeah.
Speaker 1:So they would use this to transport people, to restrain people. And some people actually died in it because Yeah . They felt like they were suffocating. Which I, yeah, a hundred percent. Oh, I got, I went into the MR MRI the other day. I'm not, I'm not real . I'm not claustrophobic. Yeah. But I, and I know I'm not claustrophobic because of survival school <laugh>. So I , I am okay with going into an MRI , but this time there was like something laying on my throat, like a Oh , it was like a weighted , um, cable. Oh , yeah . For the ear earphones. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And they're trying to make it pleasant. Yeah. It's not, it , it wasn't pleasant this time. And the mirror was on there. I had to , I actually had to get out of , this is like my 60th, the MRI had to actually have them move me out and like, reorganize things and take the mirror off because I was like, it's too much. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's , I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:It's too much because I can't have something like laying on my body, like laying . And we're gonna get into more of this. It's so fun. This is a great story. I love it so much. Yeah . So the Utica crib was also used to transport difficult cases. <laugh> ?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You mean people that move <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Overly active. Weird.
Speaker 1:Um, over long distances. They were literally traveling cargo until they got to the asylum.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. It's like one of those like fryer baskets, right. That you put fish in and a fryer
Speaker 1:Basket with a lid on it.
Speaker 2:Yes. But very narrow. So you're just in this fryer basket
Speaker 1:Coughing . Do you feel uncomfortable right now? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> right in <laugh>.
Speaker 2:I always think of food. I'm like, oh , I know what that looks
Speaker 1:Like. I could totally eat that
Speaker 2:Cage. Yeah. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:The staff at the hospital frequently use straight jackets or like those wrist locking mechanisms. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Um, but then there was like locking chairs. You can just put a lock on anything. Really? Yeah. Um, it forced pat patients into that upright seated position. Mm . Which reminds me of the ejection seat in my jet. Oh. Where we were just like, you're, it , it's 90 degrees seated, and then you're strapped in for nine hours. Wow. Getting shot at. Yeah .
Speaker 2:It's degrees <laugh> . Sounds awesome.
Speaker 1:I definitely need to go to this . Asylum drugs. Were also used like morphine to calm them down. We got to calm you down. I , I , I don't understand why shows have side note , rabbit hole, whatever you wanna call it. <laugh> . Why are they jamming things into the person's neck?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1:That's a thing.
Speaker 2:No. That's usually like when you wanna knock somebody out. I don't , I don't know morphine. I don't know how it's administered, but I imagine it's probably, but
Speaker 1:In all the movies, it's, they jam it in their neck
Speaker 2:Maybe. I don't know .
Speaker 1:I don't think that's a thing . No, I think it's can just go in your arm .
Speaker 2:Yeah. I would think so.
Speaker 1:But I think they do it for like, the visualness of it all. Okay. The horrifying ness of it all. So , uh, they also use laxatives to , uh, quote , purge the patients tonics to then restore them and naca narcotics to get them to sleep.
Speaker 2:It sounds like they're on the road to health here.
Speaker 1:I love , uh, <laugh> . It's just like eating turmeric. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It'll, and it's fine.
Speaker 1:Or digging up , uh, <laugh> whatever issue or whatever in your neighbor's yard. So , uh, if none of those works booze.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay .
Speaker 1:Booze was the answer. Now
Speaker 2:I can get on board .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Patients were no longer being cured. It was more like a, a , uh, modified prison system nationwide. There were over a hundred thousand insane people or idiots,
Speaker 2:<laugh> or alcoholics at this point now .
Speaker 1:Or Luna or opium addiction. Yeah. Post-war veterans
Speaker 2:Yeah. Veterans as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you're a veteran, you're just insane. So , uh, this would last for like a century.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I know.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous. Most of the new patients were too far gone to respond to the Kirkbride method of sunshine and rainbows. Imagine. Yeah. Um, they were just lifelong wards of the state. Mm . I think that's kind of like still a thing. Yeah . I think, yeah. In 1880, a woman named Isabella Brown joined nine of her relatives at the facility. Oh,
Speaker 2:Wow. Just stick
Speaker 1:The whole family in there. Yeah . Clearly
Speaker 2:In the
Speaker 1:Blood . The local normal people were okay with this because dangerous people were no longer walking the streets. Visitors were welcome to the facility. So there were no doubts or speculations as to what was going on there. Mm-Hmm . Your money is going toward good things and sunshine and stuff. Even Charles Dickens would visit a mad house in every country he ever visited . Visited. So, yeah. Charles Dickens. The rider . Yeah . The rider . You've heard of him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah . Something about Christmas. <laugh> . So he decided that one could not judge a country without seeing how they treated their insane.
Speaker 2:Ooh . I would love to hear his comparisons.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I want him, I want I I didn't pull it up, but maybe we'll have like a reading of Charles Dickens for Christmas about Insanes
Speaker 2:<laugh>. That'll be so festive. So
Speaker 1:Christmasy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I like it. It reminds me of jingle bells and snow and murder <laugh> under the Christmas tree with people coming to view the insane. Lots of critics popped up the local paper called the Wheeling, called the Wheeling Intelligencer had an anonymous writer, explained that the asylum was no place for rehab. And that the superintendent William Bland was not qualified and didn't understand the Kirkbride plan. They actually went through a lot of , uh, superintendents. Well,
Speaker 2:It's about time though.
Speaker 1:It's , it's a big turnover. Yeah. In , in an 1884 issue, the newspaper published a horrific story alleging neglect at the asylum. Allegedly the corpse of a patient named Mcgain had been left unattended overnight. Rats ate off his nose, <laugh> . And so disfigured his face that he was not recognizable.
Speaker 2:Oh .
Speaker 1:Uh , we laugh because we don't understand <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what the hell , was he just hanging out in the hall? Or had he passed in his bed?
Speaker 1:I don't know. The
Speaker 2:Rats got him .
Speaker 1:The rats got him . His family requested his remains be sent home. But that was not done when they came to claim the body. They were told that he had already been buried in the asylum cemetery.
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm
Speaker 1:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> probably. 'cause they wanted to cover up neglect. Yeah. I don't know . I'm just thinking
Speaker 2:Actually, he's out in this , uh, this chiller, this he in this where we've stack .
Speaker 1:Yeah . Yeah. We call it the stack <laugh> . Yeah. The, the , uh, the accusation made was that this was done in order to hide what had happened. And , uh, some people accused one of the directors of appropriating quote , appropriating paint for his own home.
Speaker 2:What,
Speaker 1:Bro, let's steal paint. We gotta paint over the blood. Come on. Oh , come on . The director was accused of canceling baseball.
Speaker 2:Oh, no.
Speaker 1:Because it was messing up the lawn.
Speaker 3:<laugh> .
Speaker 2:As long as it looks pretty outside.
Speaker 1:<laugh> with the newspaper <laugh> , he canceled baseball 'cause of 'cause of the lawn. What a , don't mind that dead body in the corner.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah. That's first base .
Speaker 1:<laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Steve's third <laugh> .
Speaker 1:The Kirkbride pan plan was to have only the most caring of staff working there. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But most of the people who worked there like didn't even actually know how to deal with mental patients. Yeah. So there was probably 10 doctors, 20 nurses, and 300 normal people who just were voluntary their time there.
Speaker 2:Wow. That's, I mean, that's impressive. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was a high turnover rate. Yeah. Yeah. Big. Yeah. Most days the patients were awoken at 6:00 AM they would eat and then they had to count their forks and knives to make sure that they didn't have any weapons. <laugh>,
Speaker 2:The frisking line is over here
Speaker 1:To start doing that in the morning. <laugh>
Speaker 2:Better have your switchblades and open. <laugh> open. You can't
Speaker 1:Conceal hide those switch blades . Right ? No forks. No. Don't stab your eye. <laugh> . Stop it.
Speaker 2:We've gotta put corks on top of all the knives and forks.
Speaker 3:<laugh>
Speaker 1:Corks on Forks. <laugh> trademark. The patients learned to sow or read or tended to the gardens. The patients were supposed to be treated with kindness or eaten by a rat, whatever, <laugh> . But occasionally they had like abrupt violent outburst and they did have to be restrained, which
Speaker 2:I , yeah.
Speaker 1:That's like timeout for my kids when they're like slamming doors. Yeah . And throwing out the I hate shoes . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And you're the worst mom ever. Yeah. I got your worst Mom. Go sit
Speaker 2:In your room . She's
Speaker 1:Out in asylum. That's right.
Speaker 2:Having a vacation. It's like a spot .
Speaker 1:It's getting a face eaten off. Uh, so the attendants often use confinement chairs, chair cages and isolation cells. That's the best place to person to put someone insane . Oh, yeah. In the isolation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. Um, they were actually used until the day the asylum closed.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Fun. Yeah. The rusted rings to which the most violent were chained in isolation cells on the, on the third floor. You can still see those.
Speaker 2:Ooh , really? Really
Speaker 1:This big? I can't see that. It's like two inches around. You know, if you put your little fingers together Yeah . You made a
Speaker 2:Circle. They just chained them to that. It's ,
Speaker 1:It's the width of a coffee cup.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like my sarcasm queen coffee
Speaker 2:Cup. Yes. I was just thinking that's kind . Bought it for myself. Yeah . Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what you do. Most of the at attendants lived on the asylum grounds earning about $25 a week. That was actually a lot for back then. Yeah. And that was like six. That ,
Speaker 2:That's a heavy lifting job though. It
Speaker 1:Is. Yeah. <laugh> . It only gets worse. Yeah. So you can imagine like, the sounds of living there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So they're living, and what they're hearing is like the moans and the screams. So the lights are off.
Speaker 2:And the masturbation,
Speaker 1:It's echoing through the halls. It's just like floating, laughing, crying. Screaming.
Speaker 2:Screaming. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wanna live there. That sounds awesome. It sounds like my house actually. Yeah. Sat in a bark. And you're in , you're in my house. <laugh>. So electricity showed up in 1892. This was helpful.
Speaker 2:That's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. In the fall of 1901, president McKinley was assassinated by a mentally ill man. So if you wanna hear that, that's episode 15. So yeah . Tell
Speaker 2:Dad . Great. It's episode
Speaker 1:15. Great story. That should have been a two-parter was so good. The asylum was That's, that's me reading more books.
Speaker 2:Yeah. <laugh> . Well, you need to quit doing that, or we're gonna call you insane. I have my books read to me. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Maybe I do too. Okay. I I , this one though, I actually read with my eyes. I had a
Speaker 2:Girl with my
Speaker 1:Eyes. <laugh> . I love it. The asylum was increasingly more scrutinized. The new superintendent, Dr. Straters , was in court after being accused of abusing his posi position. One night, Dr. Straters entered the room of Mrs. Mary Somerville, a patient, and made unwanted sexual advances. Mm-Hmm . Asking her to be his pet.
Speaker 2:Ew .
Speaker 1:Stop it. He was also accused of taking one of the nurses to St. Louis for immoral purposes. Uhoh , you know, you're insane if you do an immoral stuff.
Speaker 2:I was about to say, he is about to get put in room 4 21. Dr .
Speaker 1:Struthers <laugh> . After the year long case. Why is it taking a year?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's just interview some people and get it over there .
Speaker 1:I don't know why they believed any of these insane people. Anyway , <laugh> , clearly I'm making it up. Uh , the board of directors asked Dr. Straters to resign. He was like, nah, I'm staying. And they were like, listen bro, if you don't go, we're gonna fire you. And he was like, fine. The
Speaker 2:Idiot committee has ruled we
Speaker 1:Rule over you over the next few years. The building grew in size. They had to build one more building just for the piles of laundry of the over 1000 people.
Speaker 2:Ugh .
Speaker 1:It was like a laundry mill.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's , uh,
Speaker 1:I wonder what that smelled like, because they only changed like, literally once a week.
Speaker 2:Ew. Really? Yeah.
Speaker 1:They, they showered once a week and change their clothes once a week. And their bed linens were changed once a week.
Speaker 2:People are throwing feces and all types of Hmm . Amazing. Joe Rogan needs to do a , uh, dirty Jobs <laugh> episode on that.
Speaker 1:Joe. I do. Like Joe. They do . In the early 20th century, the doctors begin hydrotherapy. So when you watch the , uh, when you watch the, the asylum season on , uh, American Horror Story, they have this hydrotherapy.
Speaker 2:Is it water boarding?
Speaker 1:No. Okay. So let me, let me describe, we have a bathtub. The process placed the subject in a hammock suspended over the bathtub or suspended in a bathtub. So , Ooh . So the hammock is in the bathtub. It sounds nice. That sounds
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:Until this
Speaker 2:Oh ,
Speaker 1:Uh, the bathtub is now covered with a canvas sheet and your head is sticking out at , at
Speaker 2:The end of it. Oh , okay. No , yeah . No . Mm-Hmm,
Speaker 1:<affirmative> . So , um, patients might stay in the tub for hours or days.
Speaker 2:Ew .
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sometimes with bandages over their eyes and ears. Oh,
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no , no .
Speaker 1:Nope. Do you wanna go now?
Speaker 2:No,
Speaker 1:That is no . Do you wanna go home now? Yes. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> sounds super fun. Patients who were , uh, depressed and lethargic were placed in a needle shower.
Speaker 2:Ew . What? Oh ,
Speaker 1:What is a needle shower? You asked? I do, I actually wrote that in there because I knew you'd ask .
Speaker 2:I am, I'm
Speaker 1:Asking. I know. You, you ask questions. Yeah . <laugh> . What is that? Basically you're being power washed with frigid water for several minutes.
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker 1:This happened to me in survival school. It's not refreshing. So it
Speaker 2:Feels like needles.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You wanna die. It's supposed to stimulate blood flow. Yeah . Happy to revitalize the patient. Do you feel revitalized? No. I feel like I'm cold and in pain. I hate you. Oh , now I'm insane. Yeah. I wasn't before. I am now. <laugh> . So there was also a , a wet pack. Hmm . Okay . So we, we've got a , you take sheets. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . You dip 'em in water. Okay . You wrap 'em around the patient until only their hands and feet and head are sticking out. <laugh>
Speaker 2:Like one of those balls. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Yay . I'm so happy I can't move any of my parts. So as the sheets dry, they actually shrink. Oh . And tighten restricting your breathing. It , it's good for you.
Speaker 2:I cannot understand how any of these Okay. Carry on.
Speaker 1:It's so good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I'd probably kill myself if I was there. Yeah. Me jumping off things a hundred percent. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> suffocation for all my friends. So what was the , uh, so that was the wet pack. Uh, there's also a dry pack. Oh yeah. You could see , you know, sheets. Basically you're in a straight jacket by another name. Okay. In the 1920s hearings were held re re regarding the death of a 38-year-old female patient who was in the hospital for 48 hours before she died.
Speaker 2:Hmm . That's suspicious.
Speaker 1:She was, she was brought in because she's like, I am the Virgin Mary and I like to , uh, not eat and I will sing loudly.
Speaker 2:Okay. Sounds like she's checked herself into the right place. Yep .
Speaker 1:And they found her, she was still in her restraints with bruises all over her body. When she was brought in, she had become violent. So they put her in restrictive sleeves. Her stockings were tied around her ankles, and then they secured her to the bedstead. So, like that , the headboard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A sheet had been stretched across her stomach and then tied to the side bed rails. Then they left.
Speaker 2:Oh , bye. Oh , good luck. She
Speaker 1:Died from suffocation.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna die from suffocation. No,
Speaker 2:That's, that's a nightmare of mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wow . Like drowning is my biggest fear.
Speaker 2:How is that not murder?
Speaker 1:Well, she checked herself in and it's , she's the one who was the virgin Mary
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 1:Not their fault Lord . Yeah. So the family accused the asylum of mistreatment. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And for an investigation, the hearing revealed that there were only three doctors on staff.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:1300 patients.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. No way.
Speaker 1:One nurse for every 25 patients. Ah ,
Speaker 2:Sounds safe.
Speaker 1:And some of the nurses were just at attendants with no formal nursing education. They were like, we are here to help 'cause we love humans.
Speaker 2:<laugh> ,
Speaker 1:I don't know anything about anything, but yeah.
Speaker 2:We forgot about this 38-year-old woman in four B for five days. 'cause we're overworked.
Speaker 1:You know, she was in bed <laugh> , she was sleeping Wow. With stalkings tight, whatever there , uh, so there weren't enough staff to patients like that ratio. Mo most of the , uh, most of the most violent patients had to be restrained because like, you got one person to 25 and 10 of 'em are running around being violent. Yeah. Now you're gonna go get, I'm gonna stab you in the neck with something and then tie you to something else. Yep . The nurses were absolved of all of their wrongdoing as they should have been. Unlike these times today where the nurses get go to jail
Speaker 2:Prosecuted. Yep .
Speaker 1:Spare me The hearing revealed that there wasn't enough funding to assist in bringing in more doctoral care. The sa the the staff simply couldn't , uh, care for all the patients. Yeah. Yeah. Duh . The superintendent from 1921 to 1928 said that he backed up his staff and that he would always prefer restraint over narcotics to control the patient . So that , I like that. I like that he believed that the use of morphine made acute psychotic conditions worse.
Speaker 2:Hmm . Eureka. Hey,
Speaker 1:Fi way to bring someone who's smart finally
Speaker 2:Sounds like a medical that only took a hundreds . Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 1:One. Uh , okay. So this is , uh, the next one. And this is , uh, what the whole entire.
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker 1:No, I'm gonna call that sec the section of that. So , okay . Um, insulin shock therapy. Okay. As a mom of a type one diabetic. This is a terrible idea, guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. So worst idea ever, the doctors would give extra insulin to the patients until their blood sugar would drop so low that they would salivate, have a seizure, and then go into a coma. Like , oh my gosh . They're literally inducing low , low blood sugar.
Speaker 2:For what ? Your brain
Speaker 1:Can't function like that. For what? Because they're insane. Duh. What , what have you not been here for the song ? Sorry,
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking like for what purpose? Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the doctors , uh, were literally the insane ones. For some reason, the doctors thought that the subsequent brain damage was successful.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Because they're drooling on themselves instead
Speaker 1:Of Yeah . Well, they're calm now. Okay. They can't hurt other people now that they're brain dead. Duh . Around 1912, state run facilities were encouraged to do forced steril sterilization of quote , mental defectives.
Speaker 2:So all of the veterans all, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're mental. Okay .
Speaker 2:Duh .
Speaker 1:There was already a practice of sterilizing women who are promiscuous
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Of course.
Speaker 1:How else are you gonna get knocked up when you're 12
Speaker 2:<laugh> Exactly. By your uncle.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So , um, yeah. Especially if they were already in asylum care. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And then they became promiscuous or, Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Someone thought they were, they sterilize
Speaker 2:'em . Let's just sterilize 'em . That'll keep 'em
Speaker 1:Going . It's , we're trying to keep the population level down here in West Virginia. There is a lot of births in the asylum.
Speaker 2:Oh, really? Oh .
Speaker 1:If the facility staff decided though that the mother was insane, they would just take the baby from her and they would raise the baby somewhere else. So some other insane person was raising those babies.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. That just, mm .
Speaker 1:Yep . There was an orphanage in the basement of the building,
Speaker 2:The basement. Perfect place for it .
Speaker 1:Yep . Gary in the basement. So there was an orphanage in the basement of the building that was used to segregate, segregate black patients. And it was also an old laundry room. But, but when segregation stopped and everyone was in the same population, they're now using it as an orphanage.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But when they became 12, they were placed in the general population.
Speaker 2:12. Yeah . What do you think the chances of getting raped in that situation are?
Speaker 1:Well, they would've already had their nuts cut off by then .
Speaker 2:This still doesn't mean they can't ugh . Can't rape 'em . Well,
Speaker 1:At least the , the shape of the building is good for , um, making hiding places.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh yeah . Very good point.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until 19 7 71 that a separate , um, a separate wing was established for minors. And that was in the old tuberculosis building. <laugh> . Oh ,
Speaker 2:Good . Could just paint with some opium on the wall. It'll
Speaker 1:Fix it. I like it. I like all these thoughts. At the time, there were about 40 of them
Speaker 2:Kids miners Oh my gosh .
Speaker 1:With the youngest at 11. Uh , but they all had a mental age of like five.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's not a thriving.
Speaker 1:No. So many Appalachian communities were actually isolated from the modern world. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And a lot of inbreeding was happening. Specifically, there was two families that were inbreeding. It's the Blake family and the rifle family. So you would just, like, the last names were like Blake Rifle or Rifle Blake , or Rifle or Blake
Speaker 2:<laugh> . And they just had a whole graduating class of them .
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this inbreeding was causing birth defects.
Speaker 2:Yeah. As some , as it
Speaker 1:Does. Yeah. And some of the birth defects children were given to the asylum because the families couldn't take care of them. Okay. My mom also inbred birds on accident and it's not a good thing. <laugh> . God did not plan that.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So many of the, many of these inbred children actually died in the asylum. Um, they had like brain, brain defects.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, they couldn't nurse, they couldn't thrive, you know, all these problems. By 1930, there was over 1300 patients. Holy cow. More buildings were being built and a general hospital for surgeries and autopsies was built. Here we go.
Speaker 2:I'm waiting for it. We're in ,
Speaker 1:We're in the basement. It's dark. There's spiderwebs, there's dust on all the shelves. Jars of preserved human organs floating in , formaldehyde lined the shelves. And a bank of refrigerated body containers covered a whole wall from top to bottom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . They , they moved from stacking them in that, that shack. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking they've upgraded the Stack shack. All right , so you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Trademark.
Speaker 2:Yeah . Stack Shack. <laugh>.
Speaker 1:That's what we should call this place.
Speaker 2:The Stack Shack.
Speaker 1:Yes . <laugh> Fire was always a concern in the asylum. And the morning of October 3rd, 1935, a fire broke out on the fourth floor. And before it was put out, six wards were consumed by fires. And the als and the , and the roof caved. Caved in. Mm . Miraculously no one was killed.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought you said six people were are you?
Speaker 1:Six floors
Speaker 2:Became inflamed. Oh , okay.
Speaker 1:So Legend has it that they rang the , the dinner bell and everybody moved to the cafeteria and they were able to get them out that way. <laugh> . That's awesome . Ding .
Speaker 2:It's like , pop nothing
Speaker 1:Over the side . Let's go . It's dinner.
Speaker 2:We're , we've got pudding for dessert.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, this is kind of cool. One patient was trapped . I mean, it's whatever. One patient was trapped behind the metal bars, like on the windows. Oh yeah . And the fire was behind him. So one of the firemen actually got up there on the ladder, was able to pull, bend down the, bend down the , um, the metal bars and pull the guy out. What? So everybody lived
Speaker 2:Wow. Right . Ridge <laugh>
Speaker 1:Bend the iron. That's why you work out . That's why you gotta work out in case you need to bend metal . That's right. So of course, the news always doing their things. They claimed on the radio. Uh, so this is like the Twitter of the 18 hundreds. Okay . So they claimed on the radio that all the patients were burning to death. And the flames.
Speaker 2:What?
Speaker 1:Come on guys. Fake
Speaker 2:News. Yep .
Speaker 1:The National Guard and the state police were brought into corral the onlookers. <laugh> can't I like that. Nothing's changed . Kim . Here
Speaker 2:You looky-loo <laugh>.
Speaker 1:No, idiots aren't on fire. Come on. Get over here. Get in your hole. <laugh> . Stay over here in the tuberculosis wing. You'll be fine. Idiots. After an inquiry into the fire, the police found an 18-year-old man named Forest Culvert. I like that. His name is Forrest . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> had set some paper on fire on the fourth floor, but it, like lit stuff, and so he got scared and ran off.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Maybe
Speaker 1:He just don't light stuff on fire. Moron . So this was cool. President Roosevelt authorized $115,000 to rebuild the facility. Great. Thank you. Roosevelt. In the mid 1940s, the , the facility was still running as a well-oiled farm. They had over a hundred head of cattle, tons of fruits and vegetables and coal. They were actually like mining coal from a local area.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. Yeah . So they're really self-sufficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're like a little town. Yeah.
Speaker 2:However,
Speaker 1:The 1940s brought along electro shock therapy.
Speaker 2:Ah . I was waiting for it . Electro shock therapy
Speaker 1:For all my friends.
Speaker 2:It provided
Speaker 1:A less expensive, more effective way to create those doctor loved induced convulsions. Doctor ,
Speaker 2:Loved .
Speaker 1:Are you feeling insane? <laugh>?
Speaker 2:You need a little electricity going through your brain.
Speaker 1:Log onto electroshock therapy.com. Wow. Use whatever our pod podcast name is for a 20% discount. <laugh>
Speaker 2:State's exhibit <laugh>
Speaker 1:Electrodes were placed on either the forehead on either side of the forehead. A massive jolt of electricity was passed through the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is what makes time happen in your brain.
Speaker 2:<laugh> good .
Speaker 1:It induced violent convulsions. Oh .
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:Up until numbing injections were , uh, were were brought about . Yeah. Prior to the procedure, 40% of those treated, suffered broken bones from the thrashing they were thrashing about
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:From the electricity that was in
Speaker 2:Their brain. Well , what about all the clamps and restraints and
Speaker 1:Well , well, this is different therapy
Speaker 2:Oh's . Oh . So I'm so stupid. Oh God. You're
Speaker 1:An idiot. <laugh> . I mean , uh, I'm not shocked . Like , shocked by this voodoo B the patients tried to escape after a few times. Yeah. Yeah . So then they, then they started to restrain them.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Again, just kill me. Just Yeah . Just ,
Speaker 2:Just get it over with .
Speaker 1:Just kill me. Yeah. Just give me a cyanide pill. I'll be fine. <laugh> . Yeah. Some suffered brain damage. Weird. Oh, so weird. A couple
Speaker 2:Died. You can control electricity. You
Speaker 1:Know, you who dies from shock therapy in their brain to the brain. So weird. You should have been stronger. You had all those vegetables, tuberculosis. After World War ii, there was no end in sight to more incoming patients. Great .
Speaker 2:Yeah . Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 1:<affirmative> . Yeah. Because now we're, now we're dealing with a new war. So the Civil War, world War ii, now the New War brought in patients that were taught , and so they topped outta 1600 patients.
Speaker 2:Okay. Taking no more.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now we mean it. Yeah. Yeah. It was started 250. That, that ain't nothing. So in 1948, a rehab center was built and a forensics department. Why is there a forensics department and an asylum?
Speaker 2:That's a very good question.
Speaker 1:Well, there was also arts and crafts. <laugh> . They had an arts and crafts center built next to the forensics
Speaker 2:Department . Quit eating the glue. You idiots.
Speaker 1:Despite these efforts, life at the asylum was grim. Yeah. Shortly before retiring in 1949, superintendent Dr. Knapp led journalists from the Charleston Gazette on an inspection tour of the asylum. That graphically revealed how gruesome the institution had become. Yeah. It's not lights and rainbows and sunshine.
Speaker 2:No . Now Yeah . Murals.
Speaker 1:And with the population of over 1800.
Speaker 2:Oh , okay. Yeah. We didn't mean it Mm-Hmm . But this time we
Speaker 1:Do. Yeah. Overcrowding had become a crisis. <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because you have literally like a , a small country living in a building, <laugh> . And they're , and they're angry. Yeah. <laugh> patients were sleeping in halls in common areas, rooms for product . So basically like college. Yeah. Now that I think about it, rooms for productive activities were remade into bedrooms with beds only being inches apart. Hmm .
Speaker 2:Good. So what used
Speaker 1:To be painting of murals? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> is now just sleeping next to that smelly guy. As a rule, the more mentally disturbed a patient was, the further away from the center they would be,
Speaker 2:I would crazy it
Speaker 1:Up . Yeah. You're crazing it up on the, out on the outside wings. This would ensure that visitors could un avoid unpleasant smells and sounds and sight .
Speaker 2:Oh, so the stinkies in the middle ? Yeah.
Speaker 1:So , um, this is where the journalists went to.
Speaker 2:Oh , uh,
Speaker 1:Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , they noted that there was one toilet for 60 people.
Speaker 2:No way.
Speaker 1:There was pools of malodorous water all over the floor. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Only one attendant was there to care for these 60 people <laugh> . One toilet, one attendant. So these 60 people were , uh, like not able or not willing to control their bodily functions.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, imagine a house full of kids waiting on a bathroom. This is 60 people for one toilet, and they're giving them laxatives.
Speaker 1:I went to, I went to my younger one's toilet yesterday because the older one was vomiting. And , uh, I was like, why is your face so close to that toilet gross? Let me spray bleach all over it. Ew . <laugh> . Like, I bleached all the things yesterday. I was like, oh , okay . No wonder they're stink . And imagine like 60 and only, no . Yeah . So the hardwood flooring in the whole facility was a hundred years old. Ew . And it had all hundred years worth of feces. Yeah . And urine and whatever. It's a biohazard. Uh , just burn the place down. These quarters were secure behind a giant metal padlock door.
Speaker 2:Good . Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's where you go. The staff hoped for a miracle. And around 1948, the lobotomy showed up. Yeah .
Speaker 2:I was waiting for that one too.
Speaker 1:Yeah . I like this. Yeah. So it started in Europe, known as Ice pick surgery. <laugh> the first Lobo Lobotomy. <laugh> . Stop it. <laugh> . Yeah. But a hundred years from now, I wonder what they're gonna say about what we do now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, yeah. That's all I have to say is, yeah.
Speaker 1:Ugh . The first lobotomy in the US was performed by Dr. Walter Freeman after reading notes and writing back and forth with Dr. EGAs Monez , um, who had invented the, the dichotomy later called the lobotomy. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So the lobe, yeah . Dichotomy.
Speaker 2:The removal of the lobe
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or the damage of it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. So he'd been writing back and forth with Dr. Monez, who is like the first guy who was thinking like, all this . So he is got all these intricate paperwork and notes and all this stuff, you know. So the theory was that if the connections in the brains that cause panic and agitation was disconnected or severed, the brain would rewire itself. All right . I can get back , I can get , I can, I can get behind this because I have ms and like my brain is constantly rewiring itself around lesions. So like, I I,
Speaker 2:But do they really know enough about the brain to stick a pic in it and know exactly where the wires cross and uncross?
Speaker 1:Um, this is people who were like putting people in water baths. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly. And
Speaker 1:Them ,
Speaker 2:Oh , and Kennedy family
Speaker 1:Had this electrocuting and giving them too much insulin. I don't know why you are concerned with this.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying it seems like a brain surgeon type
Speaker 1:Job . Well, this was the start of neurology actually. Okay. Yeah . I mean, maybe you could be the next neurologist because you're questioning how brains work. Well ,
Speaker 2:<laugh> well, that's step one.
Speaker 1:Yeah . So , uh, so they, they thought the patient would feel better after this <laugh> . Yeah. After ice pick is in their Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> brain. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I get that. And when I get migraines. So, Dr. Freeman p practiced on cadavers at first, before moving on to his first live human Freeman's first attempt would be on a 63-year-old woman with a long history of mental illness. She had been in and out of St . Elizabeth's for 20 years. And although treated in every other imaginable way, alas , her long suffering husband has agreed to the procedure. <laugh> , yes. Please jam this in my, in my wife's brain. The very first time you ever do it. Yep .
Speaker 2:And let's have a bunch of people come and watch. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, assisted by Dr. James Watt, the scrupulously replicating munoz's precise descriptions. Okay . Very, very into it . We've
Speaker 2:Got a blueprint and crayon here . They
Speaker 1:Got to work first. They cleaned and shaved the scalp then marked a spot just between the bridge of the nose and the eye socket. Ooh . Go ahead and locate that on your face. Yeah. Yep . There it is. And then they drilled a hole. I don't know why they shaved her scalp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. What
Speaker 1:Does that got to do with anything? I don't know . So of this was followed by the insertion of an ice pick , which was manipulated in an arc, which severed the connections in the frontal lobe. The operation lasted just under an hour. And after two weeks of convalescence, she went home.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Her husband said that while occasionally his wife was child, like she's, she no longer was agitated and panicky.
Speaker 2:Yeah . She's drooling on the couch again. Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah . She's five. Whatever. Dr. Freeman went on to complete 40,000 lobotomies.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Okay. In 1948, ed Reser was now the director of the West Virginia Hospital for the insane, and he was at his wit's end. He's like, I got a bajillion people here. And they're all insane at my asylum. Yeah. Which is weird. He begged his old buddy, Dr. Freeman, to come to West Virginia. Help him out. Come on, come on. Freeman headed to West , West Virginia. He headed on down. I know how to do lobotomy. Now. 1952, Dr. Freeman performed 787 lobotomies, including 225 in a 12 day span.
Speaker 2:Holy cow. In a 12 day span. That's just, he
Speaker 1:Should get like the medal of Honor or something. Oh . Or something. He could reduce an adult to a childlike state in under 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:How weird. With an ice pick seems . Yep .
Speaker 1:Here we go. Here's our first joke. Freeman crisscross the state in his van dubbed the Lobo Mobile .
Speaker 2:No, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't do that.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Wow.
Speaker 1:That was them. Wow . Thedo Mobile
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> <laugh> .
Speaker 1:We got jokes in the fifties. This was great for Freeman. But his partner, Dr. Watt, was horrified that Freeman could care less about hygiene. Is this your brain? Whatever. Yeah. Freeman's ego was so big that once he turned around for a picture and the ice pick . Okay. So he turned the ice pick's in the woman's face. Right? It's in her face. Oh, he tapped it turned around for a picture. Picture the ice pick broke in half. Oh . And the ice pick was stuck in her face .
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Apparently he never washed his hands either. Ew . Or his tools. And he kept his tools in his pockets.
Speaker 2:Oh , gross.
Speaker 1:This is so fun. I love this guy. One time working in DC framing , got a call from the family that their family member was detained by police and he was being very violent. So Freeman shows up with a Twinky ink . He's got all his stuff. They're at a motel. They're at a motel.
Speaker 2:No , he's got the mobile parked in the front. <laugh> .
Speaker 1:They are restraining the guy in the hotel on the floor. Police are there. They're holding the guy down. And he was like, Hey, guess what? I got in my pocket. Okay. So he happened to have an , uh, an electroshock kit in his cigar box. <laugh> , you know, as one does. And he, so he shocks the patient. He's like, Hey, while I'm at it. Yeah. Let me just give 'em a lobotomy.
Speaker 2:<laugh> my gosh.
Speaker 1:On the floor of a motel. Well, how fortunate. That was great. The family was happy because they only had to pay the hotel cost and not a hospital visit.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:I like that about that family. I think I'm related to them. The patient came away a zombie and the family toted them away to recover at home. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Come sit in the guest room that you live in now.
Speaker 1:Wow. I just can't even, how is this a true story? I can't even with this guy. So the ice pick era came to a close in the 1950s with the advent of prescription drugs. Okay.
Speaker 2:Seems a little bit less
Speaker 1:Jail . Yeah. <laugh> , not all of Freeman's lobotomies were a success. Like the one he did on Rosemary Kennedy. You know, JFK's sister? Uhhuh <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . She was 23. She tended to have like very unpopular outbursts in public. So she was embarrassing. So the Kennedy family had her lobotomized. Yep . The results were disastrous. Yes. Yes. Yeah. 'cause he doesn't wash his hands and stuff. And she ended up spending the rest of her life institutionalized. Yeah. Where , where you go , dude. Yeah. Maybe you could tell that story next time. Anyway. Freeman lost his license. <laugh> . And he died of colon cancer in 1972. See ya . Good.
Speaker 2:Back
Speaker 1:To the asylum. Over the years, the local rich folks would hold proms and dances or parties in the ballroom of the grand front lawn. However, occasionally the staff was called out to the front lawn because the patients are getting naked and doing lewd acts on people. <laugh> . Yes . Which
Speaker 2:Is illegal. Yay .
Speaker 1:High school games. High school football games were held. Um, even baseball, billiards, bingo, whatever the town people would get there , play games on. They were like, let's do this. Yeah, yeah. Occasionally patients would escape <laugh> through the uh, uh, although the staff would use the word elope. They were eloped. They were , they eloped. Eloping. Because they didn't wanna say there was an escapee
Speaker 2:Outta town.
Speaker 1:<laugh> radio stations would announce when patients had eloped.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice. That
Speaker 1:Radio stations for the win . Yeah. So most escapees were harmless and they were all dressed in uniforms. So they were easily identified. <laugh> . One man who had murdered his parents escaped and was running around town scaring people. Yeah. Yeah. They caught him. He's fine. The mass, a mass escaped happened in 1967 when nine males escaped and were hiding around town <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Oh. And like a Where's Waldo of the insane asylum <laugh> .
Speaker 1:That's exactly what I thought. I was like, where's Waldo? This is legit. That's, that's how Where's Waldo actually, actually started. I don't know if that's true. There were also hushed up murders behind the asylum walls. These murders never went public because the murderers were already declared insane. Mm . They're just doing their thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah . That's what you do when you're insane. So there is a murder involving devil worship. So he was actually worshiping the devil at this time. Okay. Yeah. So David m targeted A childlike George b as a sacrifice to the devil. David and a buddy convinced George to go into a room in the basement. What's with the basement? Oh , George. So they choke George repeatedly with a sheet that was tied to the ceiling pipe. They had a lot of pipes, like exposed pipes. Yeah. Yeah. When David and his buddy got tired, they drove a bed post through his temple.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I know. It just killed him right away.
Speaker 2:That's so's So weird . It's like a lobotomy. I cant believe he
Speaker 1:Didn't survive . I know . It's like a side otomy. Another murder occurred after the staff couldn't find a patient for several days. Um, a uh , a bad odor was coming from his room though. Um, so they found a decaying body stuffed under his bed.
Speaker 2:Oh .
Speaker 1:So another patient had just become annoyed with his snoring and strangled him to death and then stuffed him under the bed.
Speaker 2:That I can appreciate.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Same disease . Of course, there was the occasional suicides. The first suicide was way back in 1875. I would've been the first suicide. Yeah. And also the last <laugh> he had hanged himself. So remember Isabella Brown? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . She was there with her family. Yeah. Yeah. She hanged herself too. Oh yeah . The suicides , um, weren't always hanging. So one person used a sharp metal part on his bedpost
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 1:To cut his femoral artery.
Speaker 2:Oh , ish . But can
Speaker 1:You , okay. Do you know where that is? It's on your leg.
Speaker 2:Oh, is it back here?
Speaker 1:It's like, and goes into your crotch. So he's,
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Just blah .
Speaker 1:You should cut off the sharp metal parts on the bed post Guy <laugh> one suicide was by jumping off of a high stairwell. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So the stair , so the stairs, the way that they had 'em , it's kind of like a hotel where you can like look down the center. Oh , okay . And there's that hole in the center
Speaker 2:Square . Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah. He jumped. Mm . I wonder if he hit the other stuff on the way . Dinging, dinging <laugh> . I don't know . One lady was missing, was missed as a patient by the staff. Um, so she's a patient. They had a big ball. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . The staff didn't notice. She was all dressed up for the ball. They didn't notice that. She just ran right out the door. <laugh> . She went out in town, bought several cans of lighter fluid, went back to her room, doused her dress that she was wearing, struck a match and lit herself and burned to death.
Speaker 2:Holy cow.
Speaker 1:If you were insane, you are now. Yeah. Yeah. One man, one woman ran out the front door and before she could get caught, jumped from a bridge into the river and drowned. Oh .
Speaker 2:Like
Speaker 1:People just doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But after everything they've been through <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:The final suicide was a man who was supposed to be leaving that day to reenter society.
Speaker 2:No way.
Speaker 1:When the staff went to collect his stuff, he was hanging there by a sheet.
Speaker 2:Yeah .
Speaker 1:Why do you have so many freaking exposed
Speaker 2:Pipes? I know . Cover it up. Yeah. Get some rubber sheets
Speaker 1:Or , I mean, are we going for like Italian decor or like industrial? What are we doing here? Sounds
Speaker 2:Industrial.
Speaker 1:A few days before the asylum closed, there was a lady who was sane enough to work out in town. So sometimes they could actually do that. When she was told that she was gonna leave , um, she didn't want to. She's like, I live here. I've been living here for 20 years. This is what I do. Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is my home. Yeah .
Speaker 1:Her daughter , her daughter had picked her up and took her to California, but the woman refused to take off her nasty coat that she'd been wearing for 20 years. Oh . So when the staff talked to her on the phone, the daughter's like, my mom won't take this freaking coat off. Yeah. And they were like, Hey, check the lining of it. 'cause we used to see her like sewing it all the time. She had thousands of dollars in her coat pockets. No
Speaker 2:Way. Yeah . Impressive.
Speaker 1:Hashtag bank. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Good . Thanks. Mom.
Speaker 1:The 1950s was the beginning of the end of the asylum area. A new drug was on the market called Chlorpromazine. Is
Speaker 2:That chloroform
Speaker 1:Also known as Thorazine? Mm . You don't know all your drugs.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Such an opium addict. <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> . A simple
Speaker 1:Pill could get rid of the hallucinations and the delusions, to which I say, please give me some. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> it reduced threatening behavior. And by the mid 1960s, it was a commonly prescribed drug with fewer patients. Overcrowding went down. Mm . Throw a pill at it. Drug companies were thrilled with the new money coming in. They were . Yep . Halfway houses became very popular. Yeah. So, so now the people that were , uh, locked up got some pills and now they're living next door. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Oh
Speaker 1:Boy. So fun. <laugh> the asylum slot's. First female superintendent. Go girl. Get it . Dr. Cornelia Wilber. So this is really interesting. I like, there is so many spinoffs that could happen from this one podcast. So , um, Dr. Cornelia Wilber and her more progressive approach to mental health was starting to come about. So before working in Weston , she had worked for 11 years with a patient named Shirley Mason. This woman was abused as a child and she had 16 different personalities. Oh yeah. So she later wrote a book called Sybil.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yes.
Speaker 1:I know. Sybil became a by word for schizophrenia. Ah . And thinking back, people used to call me Sybil
Speaker 2:<laugh> . I just thought it was a pet name. Oh ,
Speaker 1:A decade later, Dr. Wilbur was a consultant on the case of Billy Milligan. So on Netflix right now we have the 24 faces of Billy Milligan. Oh,
Speaker 2:I'm gonna have to watch it.
Speaker 1:So she was like, well versed in the schizophrenia area. So he was the first man in America to be acquitted based on his multiple personality disorder. Mm . Yeah. It's really interesting. Um, so the asylum had roughly 25 patients in the 1960s. And then that number dwindled down to a thousand in the 1980s. And then finally in the 1990s, there were few fewer than a hundred. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Okay. Where
Speaker 1:To throw a pill at it, man? Yeah. And uh, they were mostly just like chronic drug and alcohol users. So it just became a rehab center. Pretty much new laws and policies were put in place. And the families lo lobbied for more patient rights. In 1987, the West , the Westin Hospital almost said Hotel <laugh>. It's kind of a hotel now. Uh , so the , in 1987, the Weston Hospital for the insane closed its doors plans went forward for the construction of the William a r Sharp Junior Hospital on the rear acreage of the old farmland completed in 1994. It was designed to hold 150 patients, which was just about what was left over after the asylum closed. Awesome. So amongst the very last group of the, of the transferred was the murderer. David m the guy who, you know, shoved the bedpost through the guy's through George's head.
Speaker 2:Ugh . In the basement.
Speaker 1:Yep . His , uh, weapon of choice was the bedpost he spent the rest of his life in , in , uh, life at Sharps. They called it Sharps. Now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , um, dying. In 2011 , approximately 20,000 people died at the asylum between nine , between 1864 and 1994. Many rewards of the state whose remains were unclaimed. That's very sad. Their bodies placed in crude coffins and their vital stats enclosed in glass jars and buried without ceremony . There was no names to identify them. Only numbers carved on the row of concrete markers in the hills behind the asylum. This is like the saddest thing ever. Yeah. People just threw away their people and then threw 'em away again. <laugh> , just so much throwing away in later years, the cemetery, the cemeteries became overcrowded and coffins had to be stacked on top of each other again with the stacking.
Speaker 2:The stacking. Yep . What is
Speaker 1:Wrong with you? People? After the Department of Health and Welfare took over the abandoned asylum in 1994, they were like, bro,
Speaker 2:<laugh> , we gotta get this fixed.
Speaker 1:We got a problem. Yeah. Houston, we have a problem. So they're a maintenance crew to make it easier to mow. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you know, 'cause it's about them. Ew .
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 1:They just pulled up the markers and then dumped 'em off to the sides, and then they eventually just disappeared. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you have no idea who's down there anyway after you pull 'em up. Oh , all right . Well,
Speaker 1:Some of the old markers have been found around Weston over the years. Oh . A set of 12 was returned by a man who while removing a wood stove in his basement again with a basement, was um, surprised to find that the foundation of his house was old gravestones from the asylum.
Speaker 2:Ooh . Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're just like looking at the floor and there's just like numbers.
Speaker 2:Do you put that on Zillow when you list your house? <laugh> ?
Speaker 1:I bet he did. Old
Speaker 2:Section . Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, so the cemeteries are open fields now with just a few gravestones , um, like placed by private parties. Yeah . So, so family members came in and the asylum's oldest cemetery was a single stone that stands burying the name of Civil War veteran Jasper Wyatt. So now I'm gonna go to that page. So some of the old markers have been found around Weston over the years and we've got Jasper in life. So I'm just gonna show you a picture of him and I'll post it on , um, he was a Civil War veteran, so there's Jasper.
Speaker 2:Aww .
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if you go to the next page over, you can see his , um, his little gravestone.
Speaker 2:Oh , that's cool. Yeah. Jasper Wyatt. He's a handsome old guy.
Speaker 1:Yep . And then there was this other guy that was this wild guy he had watched , um, he had watched the movie , uh, about Tarzan Uhhuh and he actually became like a living Tarzan. So he's called the Wild Man of Clay County.
Speaker 2:I think I've heard of that actually. Well,
Speaker 1:He joined the Navy and the Navy was like, Hey man, you have to wear a uniform. But he, this is what he wanted to wear. He looks like literally Tarzan, he is wearing like a leaf for underwear. I mean, he is , he is a hair as long he is . Got a long beard. He's just a hot mess.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It kinda looks like wolf
Speaker 1:Boy . Yeah. So he ended up joining the Navy and the Navy was like, Hey man , uh, you have to , uh, wear clothes. And he was like, f that. And so he ended up going into the asylum for 11 years and when he was let out, he went right back to his regular life. So his name is Orville. Orville ,
Speaker 2:He's a of course is , oh , there's his cured picture.
Speaker 1:He's cured.
Speaker 2:Cured <laugh>.
Speaker 1:And that is, that is the story of the trans Allegheny Insane Asylum <laugh>. Orville's cured. Orville's cured. I'm gonna , I'll post a picture of that on Instagram. It's hilarious. So , oh well what a neat story. Yeah, so there you go. So we can, maybe we'll do like the other three stories that go off of that one or four or five or six people's do one on Orl . Some spinoff. Spinoff. Yeah . So , so where are we going next week? We're going to New Jersey. New Jersey. New Jersey . I love it. Yeah. So we're gonna have more spooky stuff and we'll even have some stuff about Halloween. So thanks for tuning in. Check us out on Instagram , uh, state's exhibit podcast, and then you can email us at states states pod@gmail.com. And , uh, please write to us anytime . Yes, we wanna hear from y'all. We love you guys. We wanna hear your stories and if you want us to do another one. All right , we'll see you next time. This has been a clear right production .
