Wood County Asylum

The Wood County Asylum operated from 1910 to the 1970s in Marshfield, employing electroshock therapy, ice baths, and bloodletting on 250 patients. The building was demolished in 2005, but the Marshfield Scrap Company on the site reports surveillance camera anomalies, ringing bells, and sightings of a teenage girl with dark hair in the remaining tunnels.

Two patients were killed in the tunnel between the main building and the farm. A maintenance worker killed himself somewhere on the property. And according to asylum lore, a patient went into the boiler room, saw the face of the devil, and jumped into the boiler. He never came out.

The Wood County Asylum opened on June 10, 1910, on a 640-acre site in Marshfield that eventually expanded past 1,000 acres. L.E. Gilson served as superintendent for 35 years, retiring in November 1945. At capacity, the asylum held 250 patients and 19 staff. The building stretched 284 feet long and 194 feet wide. The west wing, painted blue, housed men. The east wing, painted pink, housed women. Male nursing stations had heavier security.

Treatments were brutal. Electroshock therapy required patients to be shackled to a gurney with a rubber block in their mouth before electrical current induced seizures. Broken bones and fractured vertebrae were common. Alternatives included ice water submersion, forced vomiting, and bloodletting. ECT wasn't discontinued until 1960.

The asylum also ran a full agricultural operation. An 18-acre vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, livestock (160 cattle, 225 hogs, 20 horses, 900 chickens by 1934), and even tobacco cultivation. Female patients produced clothing, quilts, and bandages for the war. The all-glass greenhouse earned Gilson a patent for its shade system in 1935. The place was a self-sustaining world, beautiful and horrible at the same time.

An underground tunnel, eight feet tall, six feet wide, and 1,000 feet long, connected the main building to the heating plant, water tower, and farm barn across South Galvin Avenue. Reinforced concrete, skylights, drainage systems. It's one of the few structures that survived demolition.

The asylum closed when operations moved to 1600 North Chestnut. The building sat abandoned. Visitors stripped it of doors, chandeliers, a cross from the chapel, radiators, flooring. In 2005, the structure was deemed unstable and demolition began. During the teardown, paranormal investigators made notes: no spider webs, no insects, no rats, no mice in the entire building. Photographs developed with white fog in them despite clear visibility. Rings of tea light candles were found in rooms. Pools of blood led from different rooms and down hallways, with bloody handprints on the walls. A student's video camera captured a face in the darkness, eyes looking directly at the lens.

The Marshfield Scrap Company now operates on the site. Their staff reports an office bell that rings on quiet, windless days. Surveillance cameras capture strange images. Radio frequency equipment won't work across the former tunnel areas. Telephone lines get interference that technicians can't explain. The property gets hit by lightning at a rate employees describe as excessive.

The most common sighting, both before and after demolition, is a skinny teenage girl with long, dark, straggly hair who appears in windows and in the tunnel. Staff who've seen her say she seems friendly. She's just there, watching. Given what happened in this place, friendly is about the best outcome you could hope for.