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'.  

Catching Up

It's been an interesting week, my computer pulled a hard-drives-don't-want-to-work stunt, which took a bit to remedy. For a little while I thought I'd lost a bunch of data, thankfully, that was not to be. 

I also told a friend that I' post a bit about an upcoming performance, in of all places, and old sanitarium! To quote directly from the e-mail I received...

"Anyway, save the date, Friday March 13th.  The place is The Bowen Building a.k.a. The Peoria State Mental Hospital in lovely Bartonville, Illinois right next to, surprise, Peoria.  Dan's band, Plasmata, has recently shot a music video there and on this coming Friday the thirteenth has agreed to host a launch party for said video along with hosting some of the ghost tours that run through out the night.  Yes folks as was implied this place is old, falling down, a former insane asylum, and indeed, haunted.  It should be an interesting evening out but keep in mind this place is not heated, nor has electricity so tours are conducted in the cold and dark with a few flashlights.  Exact times for tours and general merriment along with prices(they charge to raise money for renovations)are on the Bowen building's website,  SavetheBowen.com  General info on Dan's band can be found on their myspace page under plasmataband.  Any questions, let me know and further info will be sent out as it becomes available.   "