As Current Tourist Attraction, Pennhurst Asylum Furthers Its Legacy of Controversy

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Once known as The Shame of Pennsylvania, the Pennhurst Hospital in Spring City continues to be a source of controversy as a tourist attraction. Image of adult patients being housed in cribs at Pennhurst in the 1960s via The Associated Press.

Once known as The Shame of Pennsylvania, Pennhurst Hospital in Spring City continues to be a source of controversy as the tourist attraction Pennhurst Asylum, writes Liz Spikol for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The hospital was founded at the dawn of the 20th century as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic. It was intended to house people who suffered from seizure disorders and intellectual disabilities, but it soon became overcrowded by patients that included the blind, immigrants, and orphans.

Over the years, the admission policies evolved, but the institution still housed patients without physical and mental disabilities. Then, in the late 1960s, there was an exposé by reporter Bill Baldini about the terrible conditions at the overcrowded hospital, and it was finally closed in 1987.

Today, its old campus is home to Pennhurst Asylum, a haunted-house attraction where actors try to scare visitors who are admitted as “new asylum patients.”

However, while many enjoy the attraction, others find it disrespectful of the suffering endured at the hospital and believe it makes light of a very real health issue.

Read more about Pennhurst Asylum in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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