Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Also known as Weston State Hospital, West Virginia Hospital for the Insane and the Kirkbride Psychiatric Hospital.
The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was a Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1864 and closed/abandoned in 1994. It was owned and operated by the State of West Virginia during its entire operating life. The asylum was built by architect Richard Andrews, and constructed from 1858-1881. Originally designed to hold 250 people, it became extremely overcrowded in the 1950s housing 2,400 patients. It was forcibly closed in 1994 due to changes in treatments of patients. The hospital's main building is the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in the United States, and is the second largest hand-cut sandstone building in the World, with the only bigger one being The Kremlin. The Weston Hospital Main Building, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. It can be seen below how it stands today. (The pic is from when I left in the early afternoon)
The hospital was built by the State of Virginia in the early 1850s as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. After West Virginia split from Virginia, the state decided to finish the construction. Following consultations with Thomas Kirkbride, then-superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, a building in the Kirkbride Plan was designed in the Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival styles by Richard Andrews. The hospital's first patients were admitted in 1864 but construction didn't finish until 1881. The Asylum was bought by Joe Jordan at an Auction in 2007 who turned it into a site for tours, haunted houses, events, and paranormal investigation tours. He currently works to restore the building but leaves most of it the way it was left when it was abandoned in 1994.
Below: Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Main Entrance
Stay tuned, as always ill be posting more of the abandoned, forgotten, and left behind......
