Indiana – Central State Hospital, Indiana
When it first opened in 1848, they called it the Indiana Hospital for the Insane. It catered to mental illnesses from depression to the criminally insane, including those who were mentally handicapped. All of that was under one roof. What could possibly go wrong? Except they weren’t all under one roof, per se.
By the time the hospital was renamed Central State Hospital in the 1920’s, there were over five miles of tunnels where they kept the worst patients. At its height, Central State housed over 3,000 patients, with the most insane being kept in an underground network of tunnels so no one could hear them scream.
Eventually the hospital turned to more human techniques, but angry, abused, insane spirits don’t forget. Even once they stopped using the basement tunnels, staff still heard screams of the patients who had been housed there, and there were reports of unseen physical forces such as choking and several patients disappearing without a trace. The screams were so bad the hospital had to constantly rehire staff before it was finally closed in 1994. Unmarked graves kept being discovered after that.
You missed the boat on New Jersey! THE JERSEY DEVIL is most definitely the official haunting creature of the Garden State. Long before NJ was even a state, the legend of the Jersey Devil began. It was the 13th child of Mrs Leeds, who had no desire for another baby. According to legend, she cursed the baby even before it was born. At its birth, the creature assumed otherworldly dimension and flew up the chimney of the home. Since then, the Devil regularly haunts the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, frightening all it encounters. On the eve of a National tragedy, the Devil is said to appear at many varied places in the state to warn of evils to come (most notably in December 1941, just before Pearl Harbor.)