Central Indiana State Hospital is located West of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.
This psychiatric treatment hospital opened in 1848 and can be found on Tibbs Avenue, Washington Street, Warman Avenue, and Vermont Street. Complex buildings in the area housed mentally ill patients including the criminally insane. There were even two castle-like buildings built, called the Seven Gables as well as gardens, fountains, and fine landscaping to offer patients a pleasant place.
In 1994, the hosptial closed down due to a combination of factors, including the expensive cost of running such a large hospital system and claims of patients being abused. This resulted in the state of Indiana taking back the property and converting it to the Indiana Medical Hospital Museum (IMHM) and other things.
Patients’ remains were buried on the western edge along Tibbs Avenue and near the old Pathology building. Today, some buildings still remain on the vacant grounds. While IMHM denies claims of the property being haunted, others have reported otherwise, including the sound of a screaming woman coming out from the corner of the Old Power House basement where workers had to go down to shovel ashes twices a night, sights of shadows moving from cement posts, and the boiler turning on and off on its own. In the Pathology Building where dead bodies were examined to learn about their mental illness, there were noises heard in the basement when no one was there. The dormitories was a place where cries and screams have also been heard by maintenance workers.
In the early years of the hospital, 1848-1894, the treatment of mental illness was in its infancy. Many of the drugs used today to help patients control their symptoms weren’t invented yet. So it isn’t surprising that the use of restraint was heavily relied on for patients prone to violence. However, the conditions where the most difficult patients, like the violent, criminally insane, were held in basements of buildings or dark rooms off the vast tunnels which connect various buildings with chains and shackles on the walls. The patients were in dark, inhuman conditions, and “retraining practices” were deemed to be barbaric. The worst inmates who never stopped screaming and/or attacked staff or other patients were warehoused there in the early years of the Hospital.
After public awareness of these horrid abuses, sweeping reforms were made in 1894, which started the long history of improving care which involved actually treating patients instead of warehousing them. The use of restraints was curtailed. Vocational rehabilitation and social activities were planned. The Hospital made an effort to be on the cutting edge of treatment until the place closed.
Read more here: https://ghost.hauntedhouses.com/indiana_indianapolis_indiana_central_state_hospital#
Book a tour here: http://hauntedhouses.com/indiana/indiana-central-state-hospital/
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/and-thats-why-we-drink/e/53837901
