The Strange Hauntings and the Wailing Elm Tree of the Peoria State Hospital
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2022 5:15 am
The Peoria State Hospital, in Bartonville, Illinois, near the city of Peoria in Peoria County, began its life as the rather ominous-sounding Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane. It opened its doors in 1902 under the direction of a Dr. George Zeller, who was considered to be a groundbreaking pioneer in mental health, and it was sprawled out over 33 buildings laid out in a traditional cottage plan, including patient and caretaker housing, a store, a power station, a hospital and tuberculosis ward, and a communal utility building. The expansive asylum would later change its name to the more pleasant Peoria State Hospital in 1909, and at its peak in the 1950s it would house around 2,800 patients, including the insane, deaf, mute, and others who could not function well in society, most of which spent their whole lives here to be buried in the facility's cemetery upon death. Of course, when talking about old insane asylums and people dying there, ghost stories often pop up, and Peoria State Hospital is no different, indeed being considered one of the most haunted places in the state.
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/06/ ... -hospital/
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/06/ ... -hospital/