Eloise Asylum is a large hospital complex located in Detroit Michigan.  Situated in Wayne County, the hospital was in operation from the early eighteen hundreds through the nineteen eighties.  Spanning over nine hundred acres, over eighty buildings housed up to twelve thousand patients.

(images:upnorthmemories/flickr)

The complex was named after Eloise Dickerson Darock, the daughter of Detroit’s post master.  In 1832, the facility served as and poor house and farm.  Called the Wayne County Poorhouse, the compound was self sustaining and ran until 1872 when it was renamed the Wayne County Alms House.  In 1889, another change and name took over the facility as Wayne County House.

It wasn’t until 1913 that three divisions made up the compound: a mental hospital, a poor house, and a tuberculosis hospital.  It ran that way until 1974 when it was a general hospital and psychiatric facility.  The Eloise Asylum, as previously mentioned, was self sustaining and remained that way even throughout all the changes.  The compound had its own police, fire, railroad, bakery, amusement centers, laundries, a powerhouse, and a farm.

Eloise Asylum was the first hospital to use x-rays for diagnostics.  The doctors at the facility were also the first ones to utilize music therapy.  The compound was even so big that it had its own zip code.  While all but four of the main buildings have been torn down or repurposed, the grounds is now the home to a strip mall, condominiums, a golf course, a homeless shelter and administrative buildings.

(images:downtownzack/flickr)

While the Eloise Asylum has a rich history and an interesting past, current interest remains as it is considered one of the most haunted places in Michigan.  It is not uncommon for people working or visiting the area of the Eloise Asylum compound to complain about hearing moans, screams and roars.  Apparitions have appeared and many have reported feelings of being watched.  One of the most common sightings is a spectral woman, seeming to float around, dressed in all white.

Many even more odd paranormal occurrences happen in the tunnels that run below the old hospital.  Stumbling across old equipment and facility tools, some places exist as if the hospital was still functioning.  Pictures of patients have been found in abandoned buildings, along with detailed documents outlining morbid and gruesome experimental procedures for the hospital.  There were also jars of human body parts found in the tunnels, uncovered while building and cleaning out the facilities.

Many credit the strange occurrences to the forgotten cemetery near the hospital grounds that was only recently discovered.  The last patient of Eloise Asylum was buried there in 1948 but the cemetery went largely undiscovered until 2015 when developers were digging up the land and plotting out surveys.  Many of the gravestones were plain markers, labeled only with numbers.  Many of the patients died and had no family or were forgotten, so they were tucked away in the cemetery, remaining nameless and fading into nothingness.  Some speculate it was those patients, who often succumbed to poor treatment and failed medical experiments who cause the lasting energy at Eloise Asylum.