Austin State Hospital

Posted: 02.04.2021 | Updated: 03.06.2025

The Austin State Hospital was created when practicing psychiatry was like taking a shot in the dark. When the Texas legislature first authorized the project, it was called the Texas State Lunatic Asylum.

On any given day, the hospital housed around 200 people with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric disorders, providing permanent and temporary housing to the intellectually impaired.

Despite its progressive intentions some of the patients were used for experiments. Stories about dissected brains going missing from the Austin State Hospitl have been told ever since it opened in 1859.

The building has its own cemetery, with thousands of graves filled with those who died there. When the cemetery was moved, all of the bodies were supposedly dug up and moved to a new cemetery, but many say that there are plenty of bodies still on site.

Due to the hospital still being in operation, rumors of the hospital being host to ghosts and spirits are unconfirmed. But, the Austin State Hospital is still a breeding ground for night terrors.

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Texas State Lunatic Asylum

The Texas Legislature signed the bill to establish the Texas State Lunatic Asylum in 1856, and the facility opened and began admitting patients three years later.

The insane asylum was the first mental institution in Texas and the first west of the Mississippi River. The hospital was established as part of a global asylum movement. This new outlook on psychiatry was based on the idea that the “insane” can be made to be “sane” by offering support, care, and freedom from the stresses of everyday life.

These asylums aimed to provide healthy food and lifestyles, positive social interactions, activities to stimulate the mind, and plenty of fresh air.

Behavioral therapy, an unrestricted environment, and drugs were used to remedy their mental illnesses. These ideas came at complete contrast to how psychiatric illnesses were previously regarded, when it was thought to be caused by demonic possession.

Exorcisms, flogging, and cold water were techniques believed to drive out the demons. This Texas insane asylum was meant to exist as a beacon of tolerance and hope for the mentally ill.

Despite the progressive attitude towards psychiatric treatment, and against the wishes of designer Thomas Kirkbride, African American patients were still housed Texas Lunatic Asylum’s basement. Desegregation didn’t occur until the Civil Rights movement.

By 1890, additional buildings had to be built. The Texas State mental asylum became its own self-supporting village, complete with Japanese style gardens, a dairy farm, a hog farm, an ice cream shop, water wells, and a tailor.

In 1918, the influenza outbreak killed and scared off many of the nurses and staff. The hospital was so understaffed that patients had to take their roles.

Austin State Hospital

The asylum was renamed the Austin State Hospital in 1925. It strived to keep up with modern technology, bringing state-of-the-art medical care to its patients, like psychiatric drugs and hydrotherapy. The hospital also brought art and music classes, and recreational therapy.

While the hospital campus was cherished for its beauty, by the time the name changed, it had begun its descent. Two world wars had caused numerous staff and supply shortages, causing the hospital to take on fewer patients.

The Civil Rights movement brought a renewed interest in community care, as fewer patients were being admitted. The hospital was finally desegregated in the 60s, moving the African American patients from the basement and into the upstairs wards. While the hospital saw about 3,000 patients housed at a time in the 1960s, today, the hospital sees less than 300 per day.

Austin State Hospital Cemetery

Originally, patients were buried on the hospital ground if the bodies weren’t claimed by their families. The hospital staff was also occasionally buried at the cemetery. Room began running out, however, and the hospital was forced to find a new plot of land to bury the dead.

A new plot of land with more space was procured only a few miles away. It became the site of the current Austin State Hospital cemetery. The bodies buried at the old sitl were supposed to be dug up and moved to the new site. But, the job was haphazardly done.

Many say that there are still dead bodies and human remains buried at the Austin State Hospital. Families often had picnics on the asylum grounds, completely oblivious to the fact that six feet below them were human remains.

One of the first patients to be buried at the cemetery was John Neely Bryan, one of the founders of Dallas, Texas. John Neely Bryan helped establish Dallas’s city when it was just an outpost by promoting deeds of land and selling parcels for $1. Numerous schools, hospitals, and buildings are named after him, and his cabin is one of the city’s main tourist attractions.

Bryan had a problem with alcohol and was deemed mentally ill because of it. His family admitted him to the asylum in February of 1877, where he died in September of that year.

Although its unknown whether his body was buried at the hospital or sent to Dallas for burial, the ASM Cemetery has a gravestone dedicated to Bryan. It’s even possible that part of John Neely Bryan’s corpse is still buried under the Austin State Hospital grounds.

Experimental Procedures at Austin State Hospital

Austin State Hospital is still a functioning psychiatric hospital, so entry to the public is very limited. But numerous patients and staff have stated that the hospital is haunted. However, these reports remain unconfirmed.

The combination of its history, the haphazardly made cemetery, and its status as a mental institution point to the possibility of ghosts and spirits. Nevertheless, some quite terrifying and very real experiments have unfolded in the Austin State Hospital. 

The Austin State Hospital performed lobotomies on its patients in an attempt to “fix” mental illness. Lobotomies were an experimental and controversial procedure where certain connections in the brain would be severed, usually by drilling a small hole into the patient’s head.

The hole would usually be drilled into the temple, targeting the frontal lobe. Lobotomies rarely, if ever, worked to cure mental illnesses, and the result was often terrifying.

Patients were rendered permanently incapacitated, having essentially suffered brain damage, if they didn’t die. They would lose their ability to speak properly, lose control of their bowels, and remain in a general state of confusion.

If they were lucky enough to retain their general state of awareness, they suffered a major change in their personalities. Many remained emotionally blunted and became withdrawn. Quite a few patients committed suicide. Lobotomies peaked in the 1950s, with 20,000 lobotomies having been performed by 1951.

Texas Insane Asylum of Terror

Electroshock therapy, where jolts of electricity are delivered directly to the brain, was also used to attempt to cure mental illnesses. While many say that the procedure is harmless, other physicians claim that causes brain damage and can increase the chance of a heart attack.

The ethics of electroconvulsive therapy are still debated to this day. While the Austin State Hospital used electroshock therapy in an attempt to cure mental illnesses, it was also used as a punishment for unruly patients.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, the hospital extracted hundreds of brains belonging to deceased patients. About 200 brains were extracted. Many say the brains may have been removed under shady circumstances.

The brains were put on auction by the hospital in 1986, as the hospital no longer wanted them. Prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale offered money for the brains. Still, the administrators at Austin State Hospitals wanted to keep the brains in Texas, so they settled on UT Austin.

The collection of 200 brain-filled-vats have been sitting in the basement of Professor Tim Schallert’s lab since the auction. But, in 2011, they were rediscovered by journalist Adam Vorhees.

Vorhees was astounded not only by the large collection of the brains but also by their unusual nature. The collection was made of brains that had highly unusual shapes and sizes.

The brains belonged to patients with diseases; some had down syndrome, others had schizophrenia. One brain, in particular, had no folds. The most unusual thing? 100 brains, about half of the collection, had gone missing.

Vorhees went on a long crusade to uncover the missing brains, but they still haven’t been found. Though, he did find out that one of the brains belonged to Charles Whitman, the UT shooter who shot 16 people in 1966.

Learn more about Austin’s haunted history!

Austin may be known for its live music, but many of Austin’s most interesting attractions are no longer living. Spend a night at the most haunted hotel in Texas, the Driskill Hotel or visit St. Edwards University, where ghosts pop in and out of busy lectures.

You can read more about all of Austin’s most haunted places on our. Hit the streets on an Austin ghost tour with Austin Ghosts when you ready to experience the chills and thrills of Austin’s mysterious beauty.

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Sources:

• http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Austin_State_Hospital
• https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/02-15-17-changing-landscape-of-austin-column-state-hospital-cemetery/
• https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/austin-state-hospital
• https://www.kut.org/science/2014-11-21/the-mystery-brains-of-the-texas-state-lunatic-asylum-update