478 Comments for High Hills Developmental Center

kids throwing rocks? not in the locale this place exists in... there arent people let alone kids...

I've seen three walk-in autoclaves or near-sized ones so far, the third isn't posted yet!
http://www.opacity.us/image562.htm
http://www.opacity.us/image1983.htm

Great condition.

I will definately say that THIS room was NOT used for or by Patients!

take a close look at the middle circle. Everything in it numbers 6. 6 pointed star, 6 pyramid sections made by the inside points of the star, 6 outside circles, 6 smaller inside circles, 6 petal flower, 6 outer cross sections (made up by the "H" inside the circle.. There are 16 outer sections, which is extremely significant in freemasonry. This is a very very interesting room indeed.
And a great pic by the way!

another great staircase shot, very ornate. This reminds me of a staircase in an apartment building I lived in in Brooklyn, NY. The building was built somewhere in the late 1800's.

The majority of large residential facilities were designed to be far away from populated areas, as segregation from society was one of the main functions of these places. The more self-sufficient you could make a facility, the less it cost the state (and the less they were out of the glare of the public eye), so most places made and repaired their own clothes and shoes, ran farms and dairies, had their own laundries, and produced materials that were purchased by others (baskets, furniture, etc.). A power plant was part of the package. The state was always being pressed for spending money on the "unwanted" of society, and if they could break even by taking care of most of their own needs financially, they were under less pressure for even existing. Due to the fact that most of these places were pretty far away from town, that transportation was an issue when these were first built, and that working shifts were usually 12 hours at a stretch, they usually had living quarters for staff as well. In some cases they had cottages for married couples. They also paid extra money for staff who had musical skills so they could entertain the others (these are the days before radio, TV, and movies), and often the institution set up activities for staff, who had very little time off. These were truly small communities unto themselves, and were modeled after what was known as the "colony" model - they would truly be self-sufficient isolated colonies of the "unwanted," safely segregated from society.

Geez, first terazzo floors and now an ornate chandeliered room with stained glass skylight? Methinks this building had a different, higher use in a previous existence...perhaps a masonic temple?

These places make me think of military bases with their tripply redundant power supplies. Any reason why they all had their own power plants instead of tying into the local grid?

There are even BIGGER ones. A local news story about 6 months ago here concerned a nurse who was burned to death when she was inside a WALK-IN autoclave and it somehow activated...

Hmmm...hope somebody wasn't trying to get high enough to vandalize that beautiful glass. Looks like there's an interesting design in the floor too....

If you look closely, there is a star of david within the stained glass......

Haha, very creative

Well, atleast they left the door open for us!

Here In Dwight, IL, we have an old hospital that is now a museum. The architecture on this building and the building in my town look very similar, around the mid 1800's. Very nice photography!