While they had a smaller capacity than the main wards, they allowed for constructive grouping of patients in dormitory-like rooms.īy the 1950s the hospital was the town's largest employer, with 1,800 patients on a 1,019-acre, 78-building campus. Seven cottages, including Cottage B, were constructed to house even more patients.
Also built onto the main building were a laundry room and a boiler house. The asylum expanded to include specialized and ancillary buildings such as the Dairy Barn (now an arts center), Beacon School, Athens Receiving Hospital, Center Hospital and the Tubercular Ward ("Cottage B"). Labor, especially skilled labor, was seen by the Kirkbride Plan as a form of therapy and was economically advantageous for the state. A large percentage of the work it took to maintain the facility was originally carried out by patients. Although not a wholly self-sustaining facility, many Kirkbride Plan asylums functioned as cloistered communities, and for decades the hospital had livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop. The original hospital was in operation from 1874 to 1993. Later, the hospital would be called the Athens Asylum for the Insane, the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center, and then (again) the Athens Mental Health Center. Within two years of its opening, the hospital was renamed The Athens Hospital for the Insane. The first iteration of the asylum consisted of only 141 acres (57 ha) and over the years, grew to occupy over 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land and 78 buildings.Īthens Lunatic Asylum began operation on January 9, 1874. The land where the hospital was built originally belonged to the Arthur Coates and Eliakim H.
The main building itself was 853 feet long and 60 feet in width. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double Kirkbride's recommendation. In accordance with the Kirkbride Plan, the main building was to include a central administration building with a wing for men on one side and a wing for women on the other, each with their own separate dining halls. Kirkbride Plan asylums are most recognizably characterized by the staggered "bat-wing" floor plan of their wards, High Victorian Gothic architecture, and their sprawling grounds. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a 19th-century physician who authored an influential treatise on hospital design called On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane. The design of the buildings and grounds were influenced by Dr. Some of Haerlin's other landscape designs are seen in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery and the Oval on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. The hospital grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati. The architect for the original building was Levi T. History Design and architectural features According to The Guide of Repository Holdings, the term "The Ridges" was derived from a naming contest in 1984 to re-describe the area and its purpose. After the hospital's original structure closed, the state of Ohio acquired the property and renamed the complex and its surrounding grounds The Ridges. The former hospital is perhaps best known as a site of the infamous lobotomy procedure, as well as various supposed paranormal sightings. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients including Civil War veterans, children, and those declared mentally unwell. The Athens Lunatic Asylum, now a mixed-use development known as The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. Photo of the ballroom before a fire broke out and it was divided into two floors to help ease space restrictions.