The Ridges (Athens Lunatic Asylum)

Ground was broken for the Athens Lunatic Asylum on a hill above the Hocking River in 1868, and it admitted its first patient on January 9, 1874 – a 14-year-old girl with epilepsy. Designed by Cleveland architect Levi T. Scofield on the Kirkbride plan, with long staggered wings meant to give every ward light and air, it was built for 572 patients but by the 1950s held about 1,800, making it the town’s largest employer. Over its long history the hospital used the treatments of each era, from hydrotherapy to electroshock and lobotomy, and many patients spent decades there.

Its cemeteries hold some 1,930 graves; for many years patients were buried under stones marked only with numbers. Since 2000 volunteers from NAMI Athens have worked to restore the cemeteries and recover patients’ names, including those of Civil War veterans. The hospital closed in 1993, and the property passed to Ohio University, which calls it The Ridges and uses the old administration building for the Kennedy Museum of Art.

The building’s most famous story is real and sad. On December 1, 1978, Margaret Schilling, a 53-year-old long-term patient with grounds privileges, went missing. Despite searches, she was not found until early January 1979, in a closed-off attic ward. Her death certificate listed natural causes. Where she lay, a pale, body-shaped mark remained on the concrete floor; in 2008 Ohio University chemists analyzed it and published their findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, concluding it was a residue of decomposition combined with cleaning products, not a supernatural imprint.

The ghost stories – screams in the wards, figures in the windows, the stain as a ghostly image – have grown mainly since the hospital closed, spread by students and paranormal TV. Local historian Tom O’Grady, who lived and volunteered at The Ridges, has argued that the legend has erased Margaret Schilling’s humanity: she had a family who loved her.

Screams and voices in empty wards, faces at windows, footsteps and apparitions said to be former patients, and the attic stain treated as a ghostly imprint – reported mainly by students, urban explorers and TV ghost hunters since the 1990s.

The former ward wings and attics – especially the closed ward where Margaret Schilling was found – and the hospital cemeteries on the ridge; the wards are closed to the public.

The Ridges is a staple of Halloween stories at Ohio University and has appeared on paranormal TV shows. The cemeteries host Memorial Day ceremonies for veterans buried there, and the book Asylum on the Hill (Ohio University Press) tells the hospital’s real history.