The Ridges isn't that scary

by Tiffany Royal and Ben Roode
THE POST

So you think you know The Ridges. Think again.

The It's On! staff compiled ghost hunting skills and instruments (OK, a flashlight, notebook and pen) and went in search of the mystery that remains on the hill that looks over Athens. Mostly everyone's favorite mystery - The Ridges.

The 133-year-old complex is extensive with massive institutional buildings looming over visitors, making even the tallest basketball player feel small. The Athens Block bricks are dusted with a layer of soot and dirt, adding to the eerie effect of the buildings and, even more so, to the history that went on inside the complex.

The proposition to build an asylum in Southeast Ohio surfaced in April 1867. The Ohio Legislature passed the act, choosing the 150 acres that comprise the current site in Athens. The farmland belonged to Arthur Coates and Eliakim H. Moore, according to the Kennedy Museum of Art.

The building opened in 1874 as Athens Mental Health Center and the grand architectural style was that of High Victorian Italianate. In accordance with the Kirkbride building plan, the asylum had one large main building with wings extending out, one side for men and one side for women.

"The further out the wings, the more disturbed the patients were," said Doug McCabe, curator of manuscripts for the archives and special collections in Alden Library at Ohio University and resident Ridges expert.

"The original concepts of the small rooms (within the wings) were part of the philosophy in the 1860s to 1870s," he said. "The patients deserved privacy and the privacy part was to get their own room.

"The cottages that were built later represent the changes in philosophy of mental disturbance care (in the 20th century)," he said.

When the asylum opened, it originally housed 544 patients. They numbered 1,600 in 1935, according to Alden Library archives. The peak occupancy was almost 2,000 in the mid-'50s.

But in the late '60s a national trend of de-institutionalization caused the number of patients at the asylum to drop to between 300 and 400 people.

"The state and federal government thought it was expensive to maintain these large institutions," McCabe said. "So the patients fell through the cracks, and they became street people."

New treatments for mental patients were being developed, including new drugs and therapy, he said.

Between the '60s and'80s, The Ridges remained a mental institution, with the population slowly declining to fewer than 300 patients in 1981, according to the Kennedy Museum. Beginning in 1982, OU acquired 344 acres of the complex grounds from the state. In 1984 the institution changed its name from The Athens Mental Health Center to The Ridges, which was the name that won a contest.

The remaining area of the complex was deeded to OU in '88. But patients remained at the complex until '91, before being moved to the Southeast Psychiatric Hospital off West Union Street.

In 1990, OU acquired money to renovate the main administration building into Lin Hall, home of The Kennedy Museum. The museum houses the permanent collection of Edwin L. and Ruth E. Kennedy's Southwest Native American textiles and jewelry, as well as the university's growing art collection, according to ••Getting to Know Athens County•• by Marjorie S. Stone.

The definition for mental disturbance has evolved, McCabe said. In the late 1880s and early- to mid-1990s, women who were thought to be suffering from "change of life" were sent to the hospital, when in fact they were experiencing menopause. Young men used to be admitted for "self abuse," which was masturbation.

"You were going to run into people from severely retarded (people) to folks who were pillars in their community and then just snapped," McCabe said. "I've seen reference for people put in here for other terms such as dementia and melancholia.

"In the 1870s, there was record of an OU student being put up there for excessive study. And I know when I was here in the 1960s to '70s, when students would get violent, they were sent up to the complex to calm down."

The complex at some points in its history was virtually self-sufficient, having only to import a few open-market items. A dairy barn, vegetable garden, hog farm, poultry operation and fruit orchards provided much of the subsistence for the complex's inhabitants, and the patients maintained the various operations around the complex.

The infamous graveyard that everyone seeks out on their trips to The Ridges is certainly there. Up the hill from the main buildings and on the left side of the road is a field of stones with numbers - only numbers.

"There was no question that they were going to have patients who died, as people who get older have a greater chance of mental disturbances," McCabe said. "Many more people died up there then are in those (graves). When they did pass away, their bodies were moved to funeral homes, prepped and shipped back to their original homes, if the body would be accepted.

"The people in (The Ridges') graves are what the institution called unclaimed freight. Those people didn't have families or their families refused to take them. They had to do something with the bodies, as they couldn't bury them in the lake. I don't know why they have numbers instead of names. There is lots of speculation why, but its one of those enduring legends that no one knows who is buried up there. We have on microfilm the cemetery log book, so we do have connections - just look up the number and find the cause of death."

But those looking for ghost stories and rumors of tortured patients won't find anything on The Ridges, McCabe said.

"People are fascinated with the mentally disturbed as much as they are scared of them. Most of the times the stories are wrong, embellished, and they grow with time. When you start looking for the truth, there really isn't much there.

"What makes this town unique is the two large institutions that are here that relate to the mind. The mental hospital and the university. It's sort of interesting if you think about it."