Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital In New Jersey, U.S.A.
The Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital, located on Sanatorium Road in New Jersey, is among the most chilling sights in the state.
The hospital was first built in 1907 as a tuberculosis sanatorium and was owned and operated by the state. It was supposed to be a model institution for tuberculosis care with a mission to treat only the "curable," so those with severe cases were unable to be admitted. Between 1907 and 1929, about 10,000 patients sought treatment at the facility.
But as the years went by, Hagedorn's original mission was broadened to include those who were deemed "incurable." The hospital operated until the 1970s when it fell into disrepair and was abandoned. Then, in 1977, the government erected a new psychiatric facility right next door to the abandoned site.
The psychiatric facility was named after State Senator Garrett W. Hagedorn and was built as an extension to the defunct tuberculosis center. The so-called Senator Garret W. Hagedorn Gero-Psychiatric Hospital was a 288-bed facility and a state nursing home designed specifically to treat elderly patients who lived with a mental illness. Patients of varying ages were later admitted to the facility.
But the new psychiatric hospital didn't last for long. With a growing movement that shifted away from institutionalization, both private and state-run mental health facilities began to close down. In 2012, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie officially shut Hagedorn down, and it has been left abandoned ever since. At the time of its closure, Hagedorn was still treating roughly 300 people with mental illnesses and elderly patients.
These abandoned asylums serve a larger purpose than morbid fascination. They also stand as a memorial to all the people who suffered inside them before safer, more humane alternatives were discovered.
Now that you've explored some of the creepiest abandoned insane asylums from around the world, read about the thousands of bodies that were uncovered underneath a 19th-century asylum in Mississippi. Then, go inside the Danvers State Hospital, once known as the "Hell House on the Hill."
