Measuring over 242,000 square feet, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was a psychiatric hospital run by the state of West Virginia and located in a town called Weston. Originally built to house only 250 patients safely, by 1950 there were over 2400 people calling the Asylum home.

In 1858 the construction began using prison labor as well as some experienced European stonemasons who whose skills were utilized to complete the detailed architecture of the grand building. Due to an interruption that lasted more than a year during the Civil War in 1861, patients were not admitted until 1864. The TALA was considered to be a self-sufficient little “city”, and on the 666 acres of land was a dairy farm, gas well, water systems and a cemetery. In 1913 the word “lunatic” was assumed to be too negative of a categorization, and the Asylum was renamed West State hospital.

Doctors performed lobotomies and electro-shock therapy with the assumption that it would cure some of the patients’ mental ailments. The amount of deaths that took place within the walls of the Asylum were documented well into the thousands, which could very well be why the facility was named one of the most haunted places in the USA.

It is said that the last 20 years the hospital operated were aggressively violent. Numerous murders between patients occurred, including female employees that were maliciously attacked resulting in the death of a nurse who was missing for roughly 60 days before she was found – near the bottom of a staircase that was never used. Another story includes the brutal murder of a male patient who brutally attacked another male patient. He took apart the bed post and with great force speared the other man through the skull who was beaten and collapsed on the ground. Down at the other end of the hallway, near the shower room, another male patient beat another patient and then tied sheets around the man’s neck, hanging him from the shower water pipe. These are a few of the many horrendous deaths that took place within the walls of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

The ghost stories...

Ghost stories include hearing crying, screaming and moaning. One visitor reported hearing an “eerie laugh” that was “empty”. Tour guides have reported numerous times that they’ve seen men and women walking the hallways, and when they go to check on them assuming it is a curious onlooker, they find no one in the room the “person” walked into when the guide followed them. Reports of gurneys have been made – gurneys that are rolling down the long, desolate hallways with no one pushing them. The typical haunted house experiences have been reported as well; doors opening and closing, the sound of footsteps coming up behind you, shuffling sounds. There are also stories about the ghosts of children seen throughout the main facility.

One of the most famous stories is that of Lily. As told by Stephen Wagner of About.com:

“Lilly, so the story went, was the name given to a child born to an inmate in 1863. Her mother, Gladys Ravensfield, was an unfortunate casualty of the Civil War. Abandoned by her husband, Gladys was accosted in her home by a passing pack of soldiers who unleashed their pent-up rage and lusts upon her again and again. Madness was her only refuge from the unspeakable assault. And so she found herself in the asylum, where, as her belly swelled with the fruit of some unknown soldier's seed, she rocked in wide-eyed silence, blinded by rushing visions of murder upon that pack of men.

When Lilly was born, she was quickly taken by the hospital staff, but the child survived only a few hours. What is fascinating about the story is that the ghost often reported was that of a little girl, not a newborn infant. It was as if Lilly's spirit had grown to age three, then stopped at that age to forever haunt the hospital. Other ghost hunters testified that Lilly seems to like sweets. Whenever they heard her echoed giggles or sensed her presence, they would discover that candy bars and other sweet snacks would mysteriously go missing.”

Last but not least, reports of people being touched, pushed, grabbed, yanked and feeling as if someone is breathing on their faces when there is no one there to physically do so, tend to be some of the most common experiences had by not only tour guides, but people who visit the hospital grounds on tour.