The story
Designed in the Kirkbride Plan and completed in 1881, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum operated for 130 years and at its peak housed more than 2,400 patients in a facility designed for 250. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 and now operates as a museum, event venue and paranormal investigation site. Full-body apparitions have been reported in Ward W3 and the forensic unit, where overcrowding during the final decades created conditions later described as inhumane.