Monday, March 16, 2009

Bartonville Asylum


Well, Friday was quite interesting. After spending the day up at the Volo Auto Museum, My wife and I sat back in the rental car, and took a drive down to Peoria, or rather Bartonville, just to the South.  We arrived about 10:30pm. A friend of mine was performing with his band that night, IN the former asylum, which closed in 1973. 

After catching a glimpse of them playing, I took a tour of the building, starting in the basement. Keep in mind, at one time, the asylum sprawled out over 300 acres, and had many buildings, only a handful of which are still standing. And to get from building to building, tunnels were the way to go. There were by my count, three different tunnel exits from the main building alone[The Bowen, click the title of this post to follow a link to their site]. Some of the tunnels ARE NOT  traversable due to cave ins, at least for living people that is.  

All in all, I would recommend the tour to anyone interesting in some good history, an old building, and a great case of 'the chills'.  

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