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Opened in 1874, this four story, red-brick building was originally known as the Athens Asylum for the Insane. There were two wings, one for male patients and one for female. The most violent patients were housed near the outer tips of the wings. By the early 1900s, Ridges Asylum was alarmingly overcrowded. Rumors of inhumane treatments at the hands of overworked staff were common. By 1981, however, the hospital had fallen out of use. It closed in 1993. Although parts of the building are in use today, much of it remains abandoned. One macabre curiosity is the outline of the body of Margaret Schilling in a room on the top floor. She became lost in an unused area of the hospital in the winter of 1978/79 and was not found for over a month. When her lifeless body was removed, it had left a stain on the floor that could not be washed away. Her ghost has also been seen wandering that room at night. Other people claim the asylum’s cemetery, which holds around 2,000 bodies, is haunted.

University students would often tell tales of strange figures standing in the empty wings of the former hospital, dismbodied screams echoing through the halls, or intense feelings of dread on the premesis. The most terrifying story though, stems from the large stain on the top floor of the building, a stain that had become the subject of the most whispered rumors on the campus.

On December 1, 1979, a patient by the name of Margaret Schilling went missing. Despite the best (read: poor) efforts of the hospital staff, Margaret was nowhere to be found. It wasn't until 42 days later that her body was discovered locked in a long-abandoned ward once used for patients with infectious illnesses. Tests showed that she died of heart failure, yet she was found completely naked, her clothing neatly folded next to her body. Worse yet, to the horror of those who found her, Margaret had decayed so much that a gooey imprint of her body had seeped into the concrete. Much to their dismay, the stain couldn't be scrubbed out no matter how hard they tried, and to this day the lonely outline of her body can still be seen on the top floor of the asylum. Some say that on clear nights, Margaret can still be seen trying to escape the room where she died.

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