There’s a creepy place near Charlotte that we bet you’ve never heard of. If you’re up for taking a short trip down the road to South Carolina, you can tour one of the oldest insane asylums still standing in the United States.

The South Carolina State Hospital is one of the longest standing asylums near the Queen City, and while it’s full of rich history, it can be quite chilling to visit.

Just a little over an hour's drive from Charlotte, in Columbia, South Carolina, you can find the South Carolina State Hospital.
JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD/Wikimedia Commons
This hospital was opened in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum and was one of the first public mental hospitals ever opened in the United States.
The hospital has many buildings that were built in the 1800s as the need for more space at the hospital grew.
JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD/Wikimedia Commons
The Babcock Building was the second to house patients on the South Carolina State Hospital campus, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
They say that in the 1800s, Civil War soldiers with PTSD were treated at the asylum.
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Some who have visited swear the grounds are haunted by some of these original patients.
The hospital operated at capacity until the 1920s.
That Guy DouG/Flickr
Rumor has it, like many asylums in the early 19th century, staffing, funding, and patient conditions were subpar at best.
In the 1920s the government began transitioning the mentally ill from the public setting of asylums to more community and private settings.
That Guy DouG/Flickr
After this transition the hospital opened a nursing school which operated until 1950. The Department of Health and Environmental Control also operated out of some of the buildings.
While the Department of Health and Environmental Control still operates out of the Mills Building on the campus, the rest of the buildings now stand vacant and crumbling.
That Guy DouG/Flickr
When you walk through the grounds it's not uncommon to see graffiti covering walls, broken windows and unsafe building interiors.
There's a quiet chill that always seems to hang in the air at this desolate yet historic hospital.
That Guy DouG/Flickr
As you walk through the campus you can only imagine what it was like back in the 1800s when it was operating fully.
If you happen to be a big history buff, you'll definitely want to take a trip South and visit this place...
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...if only just to walk on the same ground as the Civil War soldiers before you, and to realize how far we've come in the area of mental health support and services.

If you end up making the trip, tell us what you thought in the comment!

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