The Ridges is now part of the Ohio University campus, but once was known as the Athens Mental Health Center (before that it was Athens Asylum for the Insane). As a part of the Ohio University campus, the main building has been renamed Lin Hall and contains the Kennedy Museum of Art. There have been buildings added around the main building as long as many that have been renovated to be used as offices for the music, biotechnology, and geology departments. There is only one building among the buildings that remain that has not been used for anything and that is the Tuberculosis Ward. When I attended Ohio University, there were some nights that I had nothing better to do than wander the old grounds of the asylum, which has been given the name The Ridges. It’s a strange place that seems to be quarantined from the rest of the campus and can be equally as creepy during the day as it can be during the night. The Ridges is probably the most popular ghost story to come from the Ohio University campus, with accounts of lobotomies and a stain of a body on the asylum floor to support the stories many people tell.
The Ridges opened in 1874, just during the time when many asylums were being built in America to house all of the Civil War veterans that now suffered from PTSD. The large Victorian building surrounded by gardens and fountains were, in theory, supposed to help cure the patients. The patients with less occurrences of a mental disorder were kept towards the center of the asylum to encourage getting accustomed to human contact. The more mentally disturbed patients were kept off in the far corners of the large wings, farther away from the exit and less ill patients. This was the layout used by many of the asylums that started coming around at that time. Little did psychological science know then, most of the patients that would come into The Ridges would also die at the asylum. There are cemeteries that still stand on the ground, the first one right behind the building with no names on the headstone, just numbers. There is also one on a hill about half a mile away from the asylum that has numbered graves along with graves that now have names on them dated closer to the time when the Athens Mental Health Center was getting ready to close.
In the early 1900s with the popularity of the asylum rising, the Athens Mental Health Center was becoming over crowded. Merely menopausal women would be housed right next to a murderer. The Ridges was originally built with 544 patient rooms and the first group of patients only came to 200. Now as the early 1900s went on, many of the one person rooms were holding quite a few and a single nurse could be responsible for more than 50 patients at a time. As individualized care was starting to decrease, the doctors at the Athens Mental Health Center were starting to implement shock treatment, water treatment, lobotomy into their patient care routine. It was a dark time that led to the many deaths- and possibly to some of the spirits that still wander the empty halls of The Ridges.
As the years went on, the lobotomies and shock treatments were phased out for psychotherapeutic drugs. The Athens Mental Health Center also went through many changes. Fires destroyed the ballroom in the building. The Tuberculosis Ward was built. There was a dairy barn built which made the Athens Mental Health Center. But as the Reagan -era came in, mental hospitals like The Ridges were being shut down all over the nation. One of the last patients to stay in the Athens Mental Health Center was Billy Milligan- the first man in American History to successfully make an insanity plea in court. The Ridges were fully closed in 1993 and left empty while Ohio University reviewed plans to turn the buildings into what it is today.
What is the big draw to The Ridges then?
Given the history of The Ridges, an abandoned asylum is creepy all on its own. There could be tortured souls wandering the halls at all hours. If they didn’t know why they were thrown into an asylum in the first place, how would they know they had passed on to the other life? Not only that but there are numbered graves in the cemeteries that surround The Ridges property and an abandoned Tuberculosis Ward kept far away on another hill. One would think that would be enough fodder for ghost stories that would be passed down from student to student. But of course, the town of Athens has other surprises.
The Stain
There is a stain on the floor in one of the 544 rooms in the asylum. The stories of when the stain happened vary; one says it came about during a renovation done in the 1970s, one says it came when somebody was left behind in the 1990s when all of the patients were moved from The Ridges. But the circumstances don’t change. A patient by the name of Margaret had disappeared one day from her ward. She had wandered to a part of the hospital that had been previously abandoned and could not find her way out. She was unable to call for help because, as many people claim, she was deaf and mute. So she spent the last of her life wandering alone until one day she decided to take all of her clothes off and lay down.
Where Margaret had laid down is where she also died. It was months from the time she went missing to when they found her body decomposing in the abandoned part of The Ridges with her clothing folded neatly near by. The cold temperatures in the abandoned room and the sunlight coming in through the large windows had caused her body to leave an imprint on the floor of the asylum. It is in the shape of her body; apparently you can see every wrinkle from her skin and every strand of hair left behind in the stain. The stain still remains to this day.
This is where things get creepy and no one has been able to confirm it or not. People have spread the story of the Wilson Hall haunting of the girl who had killed herself in her room because a ghost would not leave her alone. The room was so badly haunted that the university turned it into a boiler room. Too many people had moved out shortly after moving in, saying there were loud noises and blood would keep seeping through the walls. Well, one of her neighbors in the dorm had said that the girl had gone to The Ridges earlier that week. According to the whole story, she had touched the stain and the ghost that would not leave her alone… it was Margaret. The university will deny the story, but it does give the lore an interesting connection.
The Cemeteries
There are two cemeteries on the property of The Ridges. There is one immediately behind the building and one that is only accessed by a nature walk. Both of these cemeteries have numbered graves, except the cemetery that is farthest away has more recent graves that have names on them. In the cemetery that is right behind The Ridges main building there is an oddity. The first eight graves are not in lines like the rest of the cemetery, but they are set up in a circle. Rumors say that witches set them up in a circle to hold occult rituals. Others say it was a prank done by students. Either way, the graves had not been put back into line.
The Ridges has been a big draw for Athens. Many curious college students go up there to see if they can see a ghost or at least be scared. Ghost hunters will sometimes make the trip to Athens to investigate the main building and the stain from the body. There was even a program called Scariest Places On Earth that profiled the ghosts of The Ridges, shoving five unsuspecting people into the dark halls to see how much they would scream. Despite how weird the place is and what I have personally experienced there, I still stand by the claim that it is one of my favorite haunted places in Ohio.
Sources:
http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html
http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridgestb.html
http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridgescemetery.html
http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridgeshaunts.html
