Inclusion Daily Express -- Institution's Owner To Restore 1858 Name

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Institution's Owner To Restore 1858 Name
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
March 20, 2008

WESTON, WEST VIRGINIA--Disability advocacy groups in West Virginia are outraged that the new owner of an old, abandoned institution plans to preserve more than its dilapidated 455,000-square-foot building.

It was originally known as the "Trans-Allegheny Asylum for the Insane" when it was established in 1858. A few years later, it was renamed the "West Virginia Hospital for the Insane". In 1913 it became known as "Weston State Hospital", and kept that name right up until it closed in 1994.

Last August, the state sold the 150-year-old institution and the surrounding 300 acres to contractor Joe Jordan for $1.5 million.

Jordan recently announced that the building and the grounds would be renamed "Trans-Allegheny Asylum for the Insane". He said this would provide "a realistic depiction of the era".

Disability groups including the Mountain State Direct Action Center, West Virginia Mental Health Consumers Association, West Virginia Mental Health Planning Council and the West Virginia Americans with Disabilities Act Coalition, said they are offended by the name change.

"It's very derogatory," Scott Miller, director of the Mountain State Direct Action Center, told the Charleston Gazette. "We don't call people lunatics. Asylum is just not the term anymore."

Debbie Toler, interim executive director of West Virginia Mental Health Consumers Association, said: "As a consumer of mental health services and an advocate, I'm personally offended by the term 'lunatic asylum.'"

The new owner plans to hold mud-bog races and other motor sports on the grounds, along with "ghost hunt" tours of the facility.

He said it would go back to the original name, regardless of how many people it offends.

Related:
Groups protest 'lunatic asylum' name
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/News/200803190655
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
http://www.thewestonstatehospital.com
Weston State Hospital (Forgotten Photography)
http://www.forgottenphotography.com/weston/index.html

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!