The first ghost story i ever wrote was about searcy state hospital in mount vernon.

1. The first ghost story I ever wrote was about Searcy State Hospital in Mount Vernon, Alabama.
When I was nothing more than a lowly graduate student, I did my internship there .I fell in love
with it's history and it's white chipped walls. Everything about this old hospital spoke to me.
Before I set foot on hospital grounds, my internship director, Dr. Kay Welsh, told our small group
about Searcy's long and dark history. At the time, I was amazed that a place so steeped in
history and tragedy could still be used as a psychiatric hospital. It was even more remarkable
because most of those who worked there and lived there every day were oblivious to it's history.
They seemed bored by the history and if you asked them about it, they seemed irritated that
you would ever consider that relevant.
Searcy State Hospital is located in Mt. Vernon, Alabama. Prior to being a state hospital the old
hospital has a long and dark history that is very difficult to find, but easy to see upon casual
observation. The hospital is encased in long, chipped, white walls that seem as old as anything
in the United States. From outside these walls, you can see a battered watchtower that gives
testament to the fact that the hospital is in the same location as a 300 year old fort. The fort
bears witness to American history. It was originally a French fort and then a Spanish Fort. It
switched hands during the Louisiana Purchase and became a US fort. After the US took
possession of the fort it was converted to a military arsenal and became known as the Mount
Vernon Arsenal.
The Arsenal switched hands again several times and was taken by the Confederates during the
civil war only to be passed back over the United States again in 1862. From 1887 to 1894, The
Arsenal became a Barracks and was used as a prison for the captured Apache people. The
most famous of the Apache people to be held in these barracks was Geronimo. There is a door
in the lobby of the old hospital that is labeled as the door to Geronimo's cell. It is beautiful and
intricate. Sadly, history notes that Geronimo was not kept in a cell during his stay at Mt.
Vernon. He was allowed freedom to wander the barrack, so the door is just a lovely bit of
folklore. The infamous Aaron Burr was also held at this secluded prison at some point after his
notorious gun fight.
In 1900, the Barracks were transformed once again and the prison became a mental hospital.
Searcy hospital was built as the African American mental hospital in Alabama. Conditions in the
hospital were beyond questionable and at one time there were over 2000 patients in the
crowded hospital and all were seen by one psychiatrist. All patients were expected to work in
the fields. After I wrote my first story about Searcy, I learned more about the tragedies that took
place here. I got numerous emails from family members of former patients asking if I had any
access to records. Apparently, many African American families had family members taken from
them, institutionalized here, and they were never seen or heard from again. I had an elderly
lady write me asking if I could find out what happened to her mother. It broke my heart that I
could not. She said her mother had been sane but had offended a white woman. The white
woman had took her mother before a judge and no one ever heard from her again. The elderly
lady just wanted to know where her mother was buried. Searcy was a place of unspeakable
sorrow.
The hospital was desegregated in 1969, but it’s history is all around it. Searcy to me tells
the story of the tragedies in mental health. Mental Health's history is a history of stigma and
bigotry. It is a history of trying to forget people who are inconvenient and do away with those
who are embarrassing or different. In the 1960's, under the leadership of Thomas Szaz, a well
meaning group worked towards deinstitutionalization and undoing the tragedies of the period

2. when people could be locked up and forgotten. Unfortunately, this didn't work well.
Deinstitutionalization quickly became an excuse to do away with all inpatient care and those that
needed it have struggled to find it as it has become the tale of modern mental health care.
Searcy was closed for good in 2012. Now, I work in outpatient psychiatric care and every day I
have to tell people that really need more care that there is none available for them without a
good amount of money. The pendulum has swung the other direction.
A year ago, a well meaning writer called me for what I think was meant to be a gotcha moment.
She wanted to know if ghost story writers and collectors ever thought about the impact our
stories have on mental health care. I had written a book about Searcy State hospital called
"Circe" and she believed a was profiting from the mentally ill. She said that we made things
worse for the mentally ill by linking them to ghost stories and horror movies. I laughed and told
her about my internship at Searcy. I told her about the ghosts that haunted the old buildings. I
told her about the forgotten patients that had been buried there. I told her that the ghost stories
could only help all of us remember that some things should not be buried, locked up or forgotten
and that maybe the ghosts that haunt these places are there to remind us that we need to take
better care of the mentally ill and treat them like people. They are there to remind us of all the
living mentally ill that we try to forget, cut funding for, and who now end up in jail or homeless.
Sometimes ghosts stay for a reason and telling ghost stories can help us remember those that
might otherwise be forgotten.