05/24/2026
Yesterday a couple of us attended a public hunt at Pennhurst Asylum (Pennhurst Estate School & Hospital). A misunderstood place that had it's ups and downs.
🔍Investigation
We started our night with a history tour. Learning the true history of the place was fascinating. Just getting to see the grounds and buildings was amazing as well.
Once released for our free roam, we ended up in the basement of Limerick first. We had some flashlight play down there and might have heard some footsteps behind us, but moved on when it seemed to get quiet.
The second spot we found ourselves was the Mayflower building. We went down in the basement first there too and ended up in the music room with one of the guides. She had a rope light that was going off as we were chatting. They seemed to like our game of "jump rope", jumping in and out of the circle of lights with us. The spirits also seemed really excited when she played them some music. The rest of our experience in the building was quiet, but it was super cool to explore.
Next up was the Quaker building. This time we went up first and explored. We set up in a big room at the end of the building, but didn't seem to make any contact so we decided to move on. When we got to the basement there was a group of people getting some activity down there. They had a flashlight responding to questions and conversation. Their estes session sounded like it was pretty active before we got down there and when they went to clean up the rem pod would not stop going off. The spirits down there were definitely being pretty silly and kinda sassy for sure.
Our last stop was the Devon building. We went in the basement first and ended up sitting in the crossroads of one of the halls after talking with one of the guides. There didn't seem to be any intelligent response necessarily, but we did have flashlights going off. It seemed like maybe someone was walking up and down the hallway. After that, it was towards the end of our night so we went upstairs and just explored.
It was a little hard to investigate with so many people on the property, but I'm so grateful we got the chance to experience Pennhurst...given the current circumstances. It was such a great night even with the rain!
📚History
During it's time, places like Pennhurst were built to segregate disabled people or anyone society deemed "abnormal". It opened in 1908 and was first known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic.
Pennhurst seemed like it would be a state of the art facility if you will. They were to have a school, a gym, a work shop, and a hospital. But it was only built to hold 500 patients, which they quickly outgrew. The staff cared very much for the people living there, but this was only the start of the issues they would face.
Around 1912 the feeble minded and people with epilepsy were deemed different groups who needed different treatments. It took several years, but they finally dropped epileptic from the name and only accepted feeble minded people.
To help with the growing patient number, they did end up opening a female campus as well. This would be completely separate from the male campus that was originally built and part of how they practiced eugenics at Pennhurst. They never conducted any sterilization, but they did keep patients away from society and from pro-creating in order to remove those genes from the gene pool.
Pennhurst's population peaks at about 3,500 patients by 1955. Two annex facilities allowed that number to grow to about 4,100 total. Some patients were moved to these other facilities though, dropping the main campus to about 3,200 by 1961.
It was around this time where things started to really go down hill. Pennhurst was hit with funding cuts and ultimately staffing cuts. This did not help the overcrowding situation at all. The staff left was doing all they could to care for everyone at the facility, but unfortunately there were not enough hands to go around. Patients were often forgotten and left to sit in their own filth.
In 1968 these conditions were exposed by Bill Baldini in a five part tv news report. This was the first time the public would see what was happening at Pennhurst. Which would lead to multiple court cases where the forced institutionalization of disabled people would be found unconstitutional. The facility closed by 1987. Before closing though, they made sure that all patients had homes and everything they needed to support them if they wanted it.
———————————————————————————
Thank you to all of the guides and staff for giving us an amazing night! They were all very knowledgeable and inviting when investigating.
http://www.preservepennhurst.org/
https://pennhurstasylum.com