Elgin Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery

Illinois · United States · Execution site

The burial ground for those who died in the Elgin institution. Patients were interred five to a grave, with one name on the marker above.

This is the cemetery for people who died in the Elgin state mental institution in Illinois, and the practice recorded here is the reason it is remembered.

Patients were buried five to a grave. The marker above carried a single name.

The wider claim that circulates concerns the treatment of patients around the turn of the twentieth century, before mental illness was understood in any medical sense, and that history is documented well beyond this site.

An update from August 2005 does two useful things. It confirms what the cemetery actually is, correcting a listing that had been vague about it, and it corrects the expectations. Very little is reported there. The most common experience is objects of various kinds being dropped, and the person looking round to find nothing that could have dropped them.

The cemetery is near the quarry behind the sports complex. It is a burial ground holding a great many people who were never named on a stone, and it should be treated as one.

FAQ

Where is Elgin Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery located?

Elgin Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery is in Illinois, United States.