Tat’s Bizarre Travels

Weston, WV - My trip to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA) was a bit of a lengthy one. Not just the tour, but the drive was longer than expected, and since I had to be home at a reasonable hour this week, I felt crunched for time. I could have opted for the much more cost effective and shorter tour of the 1^st floor, but since I got a bit lost on my way to my first intended site (I don’t want to talk about it) I felt I needed to make the most of my visit to TALA so I bought the overpriced tour and spent a good three hours hearing the history of one of the last standing asylums in the united states.

The TALA is a privately owned abandoned mental hospital, originally called the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Museum. By the time it closed it’s doors in the 90’s it had changed it’s name to Weston State Hospital, my assumption is when it was bought from the state the new owners knew what a marketing gem the original title was and so they’re now using it to it’s fullest extent. In fact if you visit they’re super-slick website you’ll notice that they’re playing up the whole insane asylum image, complete with hauntings. Don’t use the site as a barometer to experience their overall marketing, though. I’m pretty sure they blew the budget on it and have nothing left over for souvenirs or brochures, although you can purchase a t-shirt if you’d like.

Built in the late 1800 the TALA continued to stand as a working institution until the 1990’s when, unable to turn a profit due to the changing views of mental health and skyrocketing bills, the institution closed it’s doors and stood vacant for over ten years. It’s only been reopened as a tourist attraction since September 2007. In all there are eight buildings, but only the main building is open for tours inside, being the only building that’s in good enough shape not to be a hazard. The other eight buildings are off limits, and many of the volunteers haven’t even explored the inside of them. The worst is disturbed mens, which looks like an army bunker from the 60’s, and will most likely never be open to tours. You can wander about the outside of the buildings, which I was happy to… all the while encountering wildlife that have apparently made the grounds their home. The ultimate goal is to restore the facilities to their former 19^th century glory, but it’s defiantly a ginormous undertaking.

The main building (pricey) tour takes you on a guided tour through all four floors. That’s the one I took. We began on the first floor which still showed remains of the haunted house they had there last year. Our tour guide told us of the concept of the building’s architecture, which was to give the patients as much sunlight as possible. Each room has a window of it’s own and there are a number of “Day Rooms” which have large bay windows that let in quite a bit of light. Our guide seemed to think it would be a beautiful place to live back in the day. Somehow I’m going to guess questionable practices by “metal health professionals” would negate any pleasure you get from all of the light. The building also brought in stone masons from Italy and Ireland to teach the stonework to the locals and do the more skilled practices like carving the faces on the building that keep the “evil spirits” away.

Much of the building is crumbling from the inside out. Paint hangs from the ceilings in sheets and there are piles of rubble everywhere. The civil war section probably suffers the most. There were pools of water dripping from the ceiling and mold growing up the the brick and tile. It was very cool. It’s just one room, though, that was used for dorms.

Once you move to the second floor you get a tour of some more rooms, including medicine rooms and bathrooms. For the most part the set up for the patients are the same on each floor, it’s just the interior of the bathrooms that are different. Each of the rooms is remarkably well lit, thus compounding the belief that the sunshine does wonders for the patients. It’s not until you get to the nurses and doctors quarters that it starts to feel a bit more like a cave.

Both the nurses and the doctors had quarters that were a bit more closed in, hallways that gave them more privacy and bathrooms that were shared by only a few. The doctors, of course, got the fancier of the living spaces complete with mahogany molding an a fireplace to each room. The accommodation’s aren’t huge, but they had a very affluent feel to them.

The final, top, floor are where the wealthy and well behaved patients lived. Their rooms are very cozy, but a bit less well lit. On the same floor, behind locked doors were rooms where they employees could stay overnight for a small fee if they needed to. Our tour guide told us her father needed to stay over on occasion when he worked at the asylum, and these were the rooms he stayed in.

Our tour guide was a wealth of stories, and I get the feeling each tour is different depending on who you get. The place hasn’t been open long enough to have a script yet. She told us some of the more chilling stories, being a ghost enthusiast herself. The most disturbing was the tale of a group of men who decided to have a bit of fun with a lobotomy patient. While the patients were laughing and yelling as they beat the man senseless, the employees just thought they were having fun and let them be. After awhile, because the man continued to be alive, the patients got service and finally placed his head under a bedpost and jumped on it crushing his head. She told us the tale in the very room it happened.

I’m not saying the tour wasn’t a good one, it really was rather good, it’s just a bit more expensive than it was worth. Besides, I think if I was allowed to wander the floors by myself for that amount of cash I would have felt it was much more worth it. I doubt that’s going to happen for a while, though. You do have to sign a waiver before taking any tour.