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HAUNTED PLACES / WEST VIRGINIA

TRANS-ALLEGHENY
LUNATIC ASYLUM.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, held patients for 130 years and now opens its wards for history tours and overnight ghost hunts. This page covers its history, what people report there, its television visits, and how to visit.

The history

In the 1850s the Virginia legislature authorized a hospital for the mentally ill west of the Allegheny Mountains and named it the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Richard Snowden Andrews of Baltimore drew the plans after consulting Thomas Kirkbride, whose model gave the building its shape: a long central block with staggered wings, so that every ward had sunlight and air. Construction began in 1858, on 269 acres across the West Fork River from Weston, in sandstone cut by hand from a quarry nearby.

The Civil War stopped the work. Virginia left the Union in 1861 and Richmond wanted the unspent building money back, but on June 30, 1861, the Seventh Ohio Infantry marched into Weston and took the gold from the local bank vault instead, money set aside to pay the builders. It went to Wheeling to fund the Union-loyal government that became West Virginia in 1863, and the finished south wing housed the troops. The new state renamed the project the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, and the first patients arrived on October 22, 1864.

The main building was finished in 1881, two-tenths of a mile from end to end under a central clock tower; the venue calls it the largest hand-cut stone building in North America. It was designed for 250 patients. By 1880 it held 717. The legislature renamed it Weston State Hospital in 1913, a fire destroyed several wards in 1935, and by the 1950s it held more than 2,400 people by the venue's count, in a building meant for a tenth of that; other sources put the peak higher. The venue itself calls those years overcrowded and often inhumane.

Treatment included hydrotherapy, insulin shock and electroshock. Between 1952 and 1955 the West Virginia Lobotomy Project, run with Walter Freeman, lobotomized 787 patients at the state's four hospitals, Weston among them; the state encyclopedia records that many never consented. Nobody has a complete count of how many patients died here across 130 years.

The hospital closed in May 1994 and the last patients moved to the new William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital nearby. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and made a National Historic Landmark in 1990, the building then sat empty for thirteen years. In August 2007 the state auctioned it to Joe Jordan, a contractor from Morgantown, whose family gave it back its original name and opened it for tours in 2008. Tour income pays for the restoration.

What people report

The accounts that guides pass on mostly belong to named figures. Visitors ask first about Lily, a girl said to have been born in the hospital and to have died there as a child; a room is kept for her, visitors leave toys in it, and they describe balls rolling across its floor on their own. Guides also speak of Ruth; of Jesse, said to have died of a heart attack in a bathtub; of a nurse called Elizabeth; and of Jim James, known as Big Jim.

On one of the men's wards, guides tell of a patient named Dean, said to have been killed by two other patients, and overnight guests describe silhouettes pacing past the hallway windows there. In the Civil War section, the oldest wing and the one that housed Union soldiers before any patient arrived, people report footsteps and voices from empty rooms. On the fourth floor, staff and tour groups describe dark figures with no features at all, which they have come to call the Creepers.

Elsewhere the reports are of the familiar kind: doors slamming, footsteps in the long corridors, screams, flashlights switching on and off on request. Overnight groups say the Medical Center, with its morgue, and the Forensics Building are as active as the main wards. Those reporting it are the guides, night staff, overnight guests and the television crews below.

Accounts of hauntings here are folklore and entertainment, not verified events.

On television

Trans-Allegheny has been filmed for Ghost Hunters (2008 to 2014), Ghost Adventures (2009 to 2010), Paranormal Lockdown (2016 to 2017), Ghost Files (2024) and Project Fear (2026). Ghost Hunters came first, with the episode "Haunted Asylum" in April 2008, and returned in October 2014 for its 200th episode. Ghost Adventures broadcast a live Halloween special from inside the building on October 30, 2009, seven hours on air.

Paranormal Lockdown opened its first season here in March 2016 with a 72-hour stay in Ward F, the Women's Auxiliary Building and the morgue, and followed it with a special in January 2017. Ghost Files and Project Fear, both made for YouTube, came in 2024 and 2026.

Visiting and running your own session

The asylum runs two kinds of visit. History tours run from late March to early November, Tuesday to Sunday, leaving on the hour: a 45-minute first-floor tour (the south one, through the Civil War section, is wheelchair accessible), a 90-minute tour of all four floors and the Medical Center, and a tour of the Forensics Building. Paranormal tours run by day and by night, and ghost hunts run all year, eight hours from nine at night until five in the morning, in the main building or the outer buildings. Check the venue's site for the season and times.

Paranormal tours and hunts are for ages 12 and up with an adult, and every guest signs a waiver. Cameras and recorders are welcome, and a break room has power to charge them, but the venue allows no audio or video recording for commercial use without a separate agreement. No drones, no alcohol. The temperature inside varies, the venue warns, so dress for the weather, and expect several flights of stairs above the first floor.

Patients lived and died here, some after lobotomies they never agreed to, and the Jordans run it as a landmark under restoration, not a set. Treat the wards as you would a cemetery. For a session, pick a patient room at the far end of a wing, away from the break room, the group and anyone's camera rig; set the phone on the floor or a window sill and leave it still.

Try a session there

Run a spirit box session at Trans-Allegheny with Spooky Box. The phone's sensors decide the moment and chance decides the word, each word shows the reason it came up, and you can record the session as audio or video and replay it from any word. If you go, go on a booked hunt, and leave the building as you found it.

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Sources

Questions

Is the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum really haunted?

Nobody can say. What exists is a long record of reports from guides, night staff, overnight guests and five television series, naming figures such as Lily, Jesse and Big Jim and pointing to the Civil War section, the fourth floor and the men's wards. Those accounts are folklore and personal experience, not verified events; the documented history of the place does not depend on them.

Can you stay overnight at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum?

Yes, on a booked ghost hunt. Standard hunts run eight hours, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., in the main building or the outer buildings, all year round; private hunts take groups of ten or more. Guests must be 12 or older with an adult and sign a waiver, and nobody sleeps in the building. Check the venue's site for dates.

Is the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum open to the public?

Yes. History tours run from late March to early November, Tuesday to Sunday, leaving on the hour from the main building at 71 Asylum Drive in Weston; the venue is closed on Mondays. Paranormal tours and ghost hunts run year-round. Hours shift with the season, so check the venue's site before you drive.

Spooky Box is paranormal entertainment. It uses device sensor activity and a word engine to create atmospheric sessions. Generated words and sensor readings do not establish the presence of spirits or verified communication.