Here’s a video I made from the photos Brian Tucker and I took during my visit to the Central State Hospital, previously known as the Georgia Lunatic Asylum.
In 1837, the Georgia State Legislature responded to a call from Governor Wilson Lumpkin, by passing a bill calling for the creation of a “State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum.” Located in Milledgeville, then the state capital, the facility opened in 1842. In the 1960’s the hospital had 13,000 patients, making it the largest asylum in the world at the time. The hospital later declined because of de-institutionalization.