Elgin State Mental Hospital

Illinois · United States · Cemetery

An Illinois asylum from the era when pain was treatment. Electroshock and cold therapy were used, and the cemetery eventually ran out of room.

Elgin State Mental Hospital in Illinois belonged to the period when physical pain was regarded as a legitimate treatment for mental illness. Electroshock and cold therapy were among the methods used on patients here, and a great many of them died in the institution's care.

A claim circulates locally that once the hospital cemetery was full, bodies were incinerated in the basement. We have not been able to confirm it and it is repeated here as local account rather than as fact.

The campus is closed. It is patrolled, and anyone caught inside faces a fine of five thousand dollars, which is worth knowing before deciding that a ghost story is worth it.

What has been reported by those who did go in includes recordings, screaming, shadows, lights inside a building with no power, cold fields and fog. Visitors describe stained walls and a smell of decay.

The stains and the smell in an abandoned building of this age have ordinary explanations. The hospital's treatment of its patients does not need any embellishment to be the worst thing about the site.

FAQ

Where is Elgin State Mental Hospital located?

Elgin State Mental Hospital is in Illinois, United States.