45 Comments Posted by BustedTrespasser

I should add that my friend used Google Earth to explore the Dixmont site from satellite photography and she said it was pretty cool to see everything up there from that view.

No offense taken, Raymond. It's easy to over-generalize just about anything.

Anyone happen to know if there are any resources on the web that have a site map of the whole Dixmont complex? I think it would be really cool to see a visual representation of all the things that this facility was composed of. I know most info is focused on the Kirkbride, but the site was 407 acres in total and Reed Hall comprised only a fraction of one acre. There is so much to this site. There are also a lot of things that were part of the Dixmont complex that are on land that was not sold to WalMart and will still probably be there for quite some time even after the WalMart is built. It would be nice to know where some of this stuff is.

There should also be more on the cemetery. I've seen websites where people have been asking questions about it because they have loved ones buried there and they are concerned what will happen to the graves. I know the 1 acre cemetery still belongs to the State and won't be harmed by the construction, but these people have the right to more information about their relatives that are buried there.

I thank you for bothering to look it up. I've lived in the Pittsburgh area all my life and never heard of the official story on the spelling.

Can we start a "save the safe" campaign? This thing should be kept in a local museum or something. With all the new local history centers opening up mostly commemorating the steel mills, I think that one of the local museums could easily put together a very interesting permanent display dedicated to Dixmont. It was a place that was a national (and possibly international) pioneer in mental health treatment that revolutionized that medical discipline. I found a few websites with burial records for the Dixmont cemetery and there are people from several European countries buried there. This place had to be well known internationally in its' day and should be remembered as more than just the old crumbling building that used to be there before WalMart was built.

Yes I did, thank you. I was watching the videos they posted there and checking out some of the pic galleries. I really wish I had the chance to explore more of the property. This place really had to be something when it was in operable condition.

paexplorers: the site superintendant saw you as you guys went around the bend and told the cops. We kept the cops busy for a while talking to them about the history of the place, but after Mr. Asshat superintendant spotted you guys, they left us a few minutes later to go find you. It seems you were able to get away without being caught by Superintendant Asshat.

Now I think I understand how everything went down that day. I still want to know who alerted the superintendant that there were people on the site. I think we were there for about an hour and a half before he showed up.

I was there that day with a good friend of mine, her brother, and her mom. A few days after our trip to Dixmont, her mom had a massive stroke and is still in the hospital. She is paralyzed on one side of her body, cannot talk or eat, and can barely move. Her doctors have found a clot in her brain and aren't very optomistic that she will recover much. She is a wonderful person that I've known since I was a teenager, so if anyone reading this is a praying person, there are many of us who would very much appreciate a prayer for her recovery. She knew about Dixmont years ago and was the one who told us about it and how it was about to be torn down.

could you post a link to your webpage please?

Truckie, now I'm all confused. My friends and I were on the 2nd floor, I believe, when we saw a newer bright red Dodge pickup parked in front just down the driveway a bit from my Jeep and a guy by himself standing near the Dodge truck looking at the building. I don't recall exactly where the Terex was, there was more than one of them on the site that day I think. If that was you, I was assuming that you were a worker that was stationed at the site and you called your boss to report trespassers. I apologize for any false accusations made on my part.

Now I wonder who saw us and reported us? Of course, it was pretty stupid of me to park my Jeep right by the front door of the place, but I figured we wouldn't encounter any workers, being that it was a Sunday afternoon. Now I have to wonder who the other guy that I encountered in the cafeteria building was? He was walking around in the ballroom with a younger kid (about 16 I'd guess) and they were taking photos. We talked to him for a few minutes about the place and he seemed to be irritated that we were talking to him, so we left him alone after a while. We wondered back into Reed Hall and that is when I saw a policeman looking in my Jeep out in front. We went back out the back and walked around the building and back up to the front to see what was up. That's when we saw the two policemen and the superintendant. The superintenant seemed to be a bit of an asshat, but he never said anything to us. When he walked away to take a phone call, the cops really started to lighten up. I guess they had to look like they were doing something about people trespassing, so while the superintendant was listening, the cops were harder on us. BTW--the cops never called me or sent anything in the mail so I guess they dropped the whole thing. But when we were done talking to the cops, the guy and the kid we were talking to earlier came walking around the corner of the building and Mr. Asshat superintendant spotted them right away and told the cops there were more people and they went over to talk to them. I don't know what ever happened to those two because we got the hell out of there before we could get into any more trouble.

The tow truck driver was real cool with us. The cops told me that it was going to cost me $40 for the truck showing up and I had to pay the driver now or work something out with him. The driver told me to follow him down to a coin operated car wash down on Rt. 65 and just pay to have the mud washed off of his truck. Only cost me $2 so I was happy.

As for people going up there and screwing with the construction equipment, it is really stupid of the equipment operators to leave all the equipment unlocked. I work for a contractor and I had keys on me that day that would have operated most of the equipment on the site. We always lock our equipment if it is left on a jobsite unattended. Contractor keys will work in all equipment of the same equipment manufacturer, as you probably already know, so there are many keys floating around that will operate the equipment. I have a CAT key that would have started the CAT 330 behind Reed Hall with the claw on it. Looked like somebody already got into it and tore into Reed Hall in the back from a window on the 3rd story down to the window below it on the 2nd story. I know how to operate that machine because we have a 307B and 312BL that I have to run sometimes and the 330 is the same, just bigger. At least I have enough brains to know that it is extremely dangerous to just drive an excavator up to a 4 story building and try to tear it down. If a large section of the wall would have broke away, the cab of that machine would have been crushed, most likely killing the operator. It seems like that CAT machine with the claw attachment on it was there to pick up large trees to load them on trucks, not tear down 4 story buildings. Good God, that could get real ugly real quick.

Word to the wise: do not EVER go onto a construction site and mess with or attempt to mess with equipment/machines that you find there. You very well could get yourself or someone else nearby killed or seriously injured. Not to mention that many of these machines cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It might seem cool at the time, but it's not a lot of fun to lose control of a machine that weighs several times more than your house.

You can't say that about everyone. I'm 27, American, and I have a tremendous love and respect for history. It seems that many people tried very hard to save this site, but the courts ruled that outside parties have no say in the matter. I blame the judge who ruled on this case for this loss of history. He was probably bribed by city leadership so the WalMart could be built and the city/county make more cash through taxes.

I understand that the buildings are in irreparable condition and have become a public hazard, but as I stated before, I think something much better could be done with this site.

But anyway, could someone explain to this "moron" where the safe was or is located? It seems that I was too stupid to be able to find it in my 2 hr visit to Dixmont.

Wow. Didn't realize that pointing out an interesting fact would get me labeled a "moron". Quite a zealous fan club Lynne seems to have. And I never realized that I was somehow challenging Lynne by noting the misspelling that was surely made decades before she was even born. But then again, I'm such a "moron" so I shouldn't be expected to have figured this out.

I suppose that it would be better determined if this is actually a misspelling if we know the year when the safe was made/installed. Very curious to see if it was installed when the building was completed in 1859.

This shot is really cool! Looks like it could have inspired an episode of Scooby Doo.

If there was a fire there, it had to be another firebug trying to start a fire. I don't know why people seem to keep trying to burn the building down, but it's so empty there really isn't much left to burn so the fire won't get very big anyway.

which im service? I usually only use AIM.

In my online research of the Dixmont site, I somehow ran across a site for some artistic photographer who took several models into Reed Hall and the cafeteria building to do some nude modeling. I remember he had one photo of one of those empty firehose boxes in the alcove where some totally naked chick was curled up inside it. She must have been small built because there really isn't much room in one of those things.

Truckie: That must have been you and your accomplice that my friends and I encountered Sunday afternoon in the cafeteria building! The police almost towed my car! Did they charge you with anything for being there? The officer told me that I might be charged with defiant trespassing, but he was recommending to his chief that no charges be pressed.