Haunted 307: Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston
While it's still in operation to this day, the Wyoming State Hospital has a deep history in the Cowboy State. Originally called the "Wyoming Insane Asylum," it sits on the edge of Evanston, with a sinister reason for the sheet over one of the upstairs windows. Today on Haunted 307, we explore a hospital with a haunting past.
The hospital was originally established by the Wyoming Territory Legislature in 1896, just four years before Wyoming would gain its statehood in the US. At the time of its founding, a new social movement was sweeping the states with a new moral philosophy for mental health, calling instead for treatment and care of those housed in asylums rather than just separating them from society.
This had good and bad effects, however, as the Wyoming State Hospital used several methods for caring for their patrons that would today be considered barbaric, but were the best available at the time. Some of these included insulin-induced comas, electroshock therapy, lobotomies and psychotropic drug therapy.
The hospital still operates today, but as advances in mental health care have taken place in the modern day, only about 100 patients are still cared for in the facility, and their methods are now considered state-of-the-art. However, one question as you drive by the campus that now has several abandoned historic buildings, would be why there appears to be a sheet hanging from a window on an upper floor if you drive past.
In addition to some claims that voices and figures can be seen and heard at the hospital to this day, one particular apparition has called for the sheet to be hung to cover a window. This entity appears to be a woman who hangs herself over and over in that room, and local authorities fielded many calls from concerned citizens who saw the scene play out.
In response, the sheet was put up to stop those looking into the windows to see the apparition, with one claim saying that there aren't even any living patients housed in the area of the building that this occurs. Is there a former patient of the Wyoming State Hospital who never checked out? Does she continue to relive the ending of her life with unwitting voyeurs from outside the hospital catching a glimpse of her ghostly image?