abandoned insane asylums

Topeka State Hospital

There is one story from Topeka State Hospital that is sure to make your skin crawl: According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, a reporter visited the facility at some point during the early 20th century and saw a patient who had been strapped down for so long that his skin had begun to grow over his restraints. Other patients were chained up while naked for months at a time. For many residents at that time, however, life offered a different similar sort of hell, even if they were unrestrained: an unending boredom. Patients were given nothing to do, nothing to stimulate their minds, and so they sat in rocking chairs in the hallway all day, rocking and staring and doing little else.

Fortunately, in 1948, Kansas Governor Frank Carlson, responding to reports of overcrowding and deplorable conditions, convened a panel to study the problem. The state legislature ended up doubling the appropriations for mental hospitals and the rocking chairs were removed from the hallway. Psychiatrists and psychologists began volunteering at the hospital, seeing patients and organizing a department of psychology at the hospital. In 1949, the hospital hired its first social worker, who prepared patients for their eventual release. Although the hospital did stumble in later years due to funding cutbacks, by the late 1960s, Topeka State was viewed as a leading psychiatric facility.

However, the hospital lost its Medicare and Medicaid accreditation in 1988, and like so many hospitals, lost patients to community-based programs during the 1990s. In 1997, the hospital closed its doors for good.