The “Lowland State Hospital” was originally constructed to be a prison in the 1910’s, however, after many concerns raised by locals, the facility ended up being completed and opened in the early 1920’s as a psychiatric facility “for the care and treatment of the insane.” Over the course of 70 years of operation, the facility treated thousands of patients who were found to be mentally ill. This hospital had over 80 different buildings that included patient housing, a theater, a bowling alley, medical buildings, staff cottages, power plant, and many more. The hospital also had its own golf course, baseball field, bakery, and a massive dairy farm. At the hospital’s peak, the facility housed 5,000 patients and 5,000 employees, and over the years, many methods of treatment were practiced within the facility. A new insulin shock therapy method for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia and other compulsive disorders was experimented, and these “treatments” became commonly used within the facility by the 1940’s. Once neuropsychiatrist Walter Freeman developed his treatment for mental illness, the lobotomy, this State Hospital facility became a prominent institution to perform the lobotomy on patients. Like the majority of state mental institutions, the hospital began to see a decline in patients as psychotropic drugs such as thorazine came into play. The hospital finally closed its doors in the mid-1990’s after its rapid decline for a number of years, and the last remaining patients were transferred to another facility nearby. Ever since closure, the property became overgrown, and the buildings were quickly deteriorating. A couple of buildings on the property remained open until 2004 as a juvenile detention center, and a few smaller buildings remained active as dormitories for the staff of another prison facility nearby. Around 2009, the dormitories closed down. Once all of these buildings shut down, the only life on the property was wildlife, and curious onlookers along with property security to keep trespassers off the grounds. In the 2010’s, a sign of hope was seen for the former State Hospital grounds when an organization purchased the property with hopes to restore the property as a university. Signs of life slowly started rising, as the overgrowth was trimmed down, and asbestos was removed from a select few buildings with plans to renovate them for the new college campus. During the start of the project, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration of the Department of Labor imposed  fines on the new owners for exposing workers to unsafe levels of asbestos and lead without proper equipment. Eventually, the owners were charged $700,000 in fines, and this ultimately put the project on hold. To this day, there have been attempts to clean up some of the buildings for the project, but little to no work has been done. And despite the current heavy security patrols to protect the property, the “Lowland State Hospital” sits abandoned, waiting for a future purpose.

note: I gave this album an alias name to protect the property from any vandalism, and out of respect for maintaining respect for the historic buildings.