My Family Visited a Haunted Lunatic Asylum

My family visited a haunted lunatic asylum on our latest summer vacation.

Yes, you read that correctly, we chose to visit what is known as the most haunted building in West Virginia during our summer vacation. 

Spoiler alert, we did not see or feel anything paranormal, but it also did not disappoint.

The Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum is in Weston, West Virginia a small town towards the middle of the state.  It’s also home to the American Museum of Glass which we all agreed was also well worth the visit if you are ever in the area.

The asylum is in a massive building that looks like, well an asylum.  Construction started before the civil war and the first patients were admitted around 1864.  So, it’s a very old building full of history.

Here is a fascinating (and terrifying) list of how people could end up in the asylum.  You can imagine that this led to overcrowding which led to a host of other issues. You can buy this list in the museum gift shop. It would appear that many people we all know could have ended up in the asylum - not sure what “uterine derangement” or “female disease” refers to, but likely something simple like menstrual cramps or menopause. Some of these are also so vague!

The asylum was actually used until 1994 when it was finally closed.  That’s a lot of years and a lot of history in those walls.  And according, to many people a lot of opportunities for paranormal activity.

 We were told that many popular ghost hunting shows have visited (we watched a few AFTER our visit- see below for some names if you want to watch the episodes) and there is actually the opportunity to stay overnight to do your own paranormal hunting.  We definitely did not do this.  While I am not a professed believer in the supernatural, I do like to keep my options open and freely admit that even visiting this place at nighttime seemed beyond what I wanted to do.  We chose the tamer 90-minute daytime VIP tour which included a history and a paranormal tour of the asylum.

Now some of the asylum has been renovated, but most of it has not.  All of the wards are unrenovated and hence very creepy with peeling paint and lots of dark corners.

Our guide took us through each of the wards explaining some of the more colorful history of the asylum.  We visited several of the areas that experience the most paranormal activity in the building.  In one room on the criminally insane ward where a patient was rather horribly murdered by other patients’, people have reported flashlights turned on and off and the feeling of a heavy, dark presence.  In a room where a 9-year-old died of illness (children lived here too) a ball has supposedly moved by itself after being rolled across the floor.  On another floor, our guide knocked on a door and waited for a response that others have heard.  There are also reports of shadow figures, ghost pictures, creaking doors, cold spots, hearing voices, and footsteps throughout the asylum. Scary stuff.

None of our group felt or saw anything, but I admit part of me was hoping to.  There is something kind of exhilarating about maybe ghosts or the paranormal being real. 

While our visit was certainly creepy and eerie, I did not walk away either more or less convinced of the supernatural.

One thing our visit did make me think about though, which certainly was part of their intention, is the history of the treatment of mental illness in this country.  We all know that there still can be a tremendous stigma to getting mental illness treatment or even admitting that there may be an issue.  This fear has led to the mentally ill being treated so poorly in our past, and in some places still today.  The asylum museum shared horror stories about the mistreatment of very ill people both in this asylum and all over the world.

One of the theories of the haunting of the asylum is because so many people were mistreated and died within its’ walls.  The asylum was even the home for the West Virginia lobotomy project and there were visible metal rings in some walls for confinement.  If any place would be haunted, this would be it.

Although learning about the mistreatment of the mentally ill was difficult, it did make me thankful that mental health is talked about more now and not hidden away in asylums as a secret.  Hopefully more people are getting the humane, supportive help that they need today and that hospitals are very different than the lunatic asylum.

Our trip to the Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum was certainly eye-opening.  While we were not visited by any paranormal visitors while we were there, I left still feeling like maybe, just maybe, the stories on hauntings and paranormal visitations are true.

What do you think?   Are you brave enough to visit and see for yourself?

Want to check out some of the paranormal shows that visited the asylum and learn what they saw?  Here are a few: Ghost Stories, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Paranormal Lockdown, Portals To Hell, Sam and Colby, and Destination Fear.