Chicago-Read Mental Health Center
Contents
Quote
"Be careful or you're going to Dunning." -- Perry Duis
The Approach
[[]]
The Entrance
Dedication
Description
This large facility, built using the Kirkbride Planned Institutions design, is a sprawling complex built on the north side of Chicago lost among rolling farmland. The imposing structure sits atop solid bedrock which is honeycombed with a natural cave system and abandoned coal mine shafts; some have been widened to facilitate easier movement throughout the hospital. A few rooms are used to store goods as the temperature in the tunnels is kept naturally at a cozy 50 degrees.
History
The Kirkbride plan is a large scale planning initiative that was in favor at the time and required a huge amount of land to hold the facility. When ground was broken, immediately things began to go wrong. Construction workers were killed accidentally, the lead engineer commit suicide, and the project ran massively over budget. Rumors of the land once being native American holy ground began to spread…never to be proven, or disproven. After nearly five years of construction the facility opened and soon was full of patients. Within a year, collapsing mine shafts caused the collapse of one of the out buildings. As a result, a portion of the underground tunnel system has been sealed off.
Doctor George Zeller became the director of the facility in 1881 and revamped the treatment of patients. His new mental health treatment system was so successful he was given wide leeway and ample money to widen the facility. Over the next ten years he enlarged the facility nearly three times its original size and nearly doubled the patient count. Over time, the facility has been very successful.
However, there has been talk. Rumors persist of patient maltreatment, people disappearing into the tunnels, patients speak of strange people in their rooms, nurses see things they cannot explain, disembodied screams in the middle of the night…..course, no one believes any of this madness. It is merely the talk of insane people.
Location
Map of Dunning Asylum
Site Plan 1970: Where all the Bodies are Buried
Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-Read_Mental_Health_Center
