A Blissfully Skeptical Duo

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Finale: Bartonville Insane Asylum Part 1

"That's a red light..." - K
"Oh..right (stops)." - D

Bartonville Asylum

We've made it. We aren't sure what made us think this was a good idea or even why we're going through with this, but we are. The Bartonville Insane Asylum was opened in 1898 and has been abandoned since 1971. When it was a working facility, Bartonville was one of the first mental hospitals and it housed those with tuberculosis, insanity, suicidal thoughts, and more extreme mental and physical deficiencies.

Men, Women, and children were brought here from all over the state in hopes that they could be cured. Unfortunately, the amount of patients that recovered from their illnesses was very low and more of them died here than not. There is a story of one man, A. Bookkeeper, who is said to haunt the asylum sobbing, and yelling out to those who lost their lives along with himself.

When we got out of the car at approximately 7:00pm, it started to rain (I know, right?). Walking up to the building was an experience in itself as I was in complete awe of it's size and sense of emptiness. Every window of the building is either broken into or boarded up with cheap wood, many sides of the building are crumbling and wasting away, and there is graffiti assorted along the sides of the walls. After walking around the building a few times, taking pictures and figuring out exactly how entry will be made, I noticed a few small, 14inch x 14inch holes in the basement of the building. Guess who may end up trying to squeeze through them? (this guy) Our more plausible way of entry is a hole in the south end of the building that is covered by a large piece of metal that is a little bent on one side. Hopefully, using the metal jack/crow bar, we can pry this part open and get inside.

I put my hand into the 14 x 14 hole and immediately noticed an extreme cold rush that lingers inside the building. While the temperature outside was around 55 degrees, the temperature in the building is around 25 degrees...absolutely freezing. We stuck our cameras into some windows and cracks in the building to get a few pictures of the inside of the building so that we know what we're getting ourselves into.

I can honestly say that this is getting into the minds of us already. We're already a bit quiet and we keep giving each other the "I cannot believe we're doing this face". Between finding something in the house that seriously fucks with us and getting arrested for trespassing, we're a little on edge right now.
There is very little to no service around the building so it may be difficult to update Twitter and Facebook with our progress, but be rest assured whatever happens to us in this asylum will be shared with everyone at some point. We plan to resume blogging tomorrow after we leave the asylum (at 4 am), but until then try not to forget about us, haha.

On the Hunt,

TPB

P.S. If I don't make it out of the building...tell my wife and kids I loved them and :
- Jonny Gomez = gets my best wishes for finding a better roommate and my copy of Madden
- Tyler Vaughn = gets my shoe collection and my sense of fashion
- Kristin Andersson = gets my everlasting approval in guys she chooses to date (I guess)
- Katie Messmore = gets (finally) my boyfriend Dan Ryan
- Philicia Mizell = gets my new box of crayons and all the pictures I drew for her
- Mark Huniu = gets whatever remaining shreds of my dignity that exist

end.

1 comment: