Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (Weston Hospital) - Weston, West Virginia

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum has seen a long history and some of it not so pleasant.  Some people who have visited the hospital claim that there are patients who have never left.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum or Weston Hospital is located in Weston, West Virginia and is host to many ghosts

Construction began on the Weston Hospital in 1858.  The original design was to extend sprawling wings to the main structure to allow maximum exposure of light and air circulation to better suit the patients.  However, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, construction on the hospital halted.  Union troops from Ohio led by Colonel Erastus Bernard Tyler then took over the partially finished structure and used it as a fortification to control the area around Weston.  The structure and grounds then became known as Camp Tyler.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia

The building actually opened to patients as a state hospital shortly before he end of the Civil War in 1864. The structure was fully completed in 1881.  However, even upon it's completion it was over it's original capacity of 250 by about three times that amount.  This number would grow tremendously over the next decade.  In addition to the overcrowded conditions, allegedly some barbaric treatment of some of the hospital's residents by today's standards made it a horrible place to be.  Untrained physicians used unorthodox treatments such as electrode-shock and leaching to try and "cure" the patients.  One of these doctors in particular liked to do lobotomies and reported to have performed thousands of them.  Needless to say, many of the patients who entered the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, never made it out...  alive.

The gates to Weston State Hospital as it was once known

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum changed to the Weston State Hospital in 1913.  However, even more over crowded at over 1300 patients the conditions and treatment for those interned there were still deplorable.  These conditions continued through most of the century.  Eventually, the hospital was closed in 1994 when it's occupancy had reached 2500 patients.  The town of Weston took a huge economic hit with the closing of the hospital.

An interior shot of Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia

Today the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is known to be crawling with ghosts and is a center for paranormal activity.  Many hear disembodied voices, laughing, footsteps, sobbing, and eerie screams.  Shadow figures have been spotted in some of the hallways and rooms as well as plasma orbs and unexplained mist.  Some claim to have seen full bodied apparitions of what appeared to be patients moving in and out of the walls of the asylum.  The building has been investigated by many paranormal research teams and EVP recordings of voices speaking from beyond have been captured with in the old hospital.  It is also said that the ghost of a young girl who was born in the hospital as her mother was a patient there, still roams the corridors.

The sprawling Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia was laid out for maximum sunlight and air circulation for the patients

The hospital is today known as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and is open to the public from March through October.  Historic tours as well as ghost tours are available for visitors to get a first hand look at the haunted asylum.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
71 Asylum Drive
Weston, West Virginia 26452

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