About this episode

The episode explores the complex and haunting history of the Oregon State Hospital, including its revolutionary beginnings and dark past.

For more than a century, the Oregon State Hospital has stood at the center of Oregon's mental health system. It was built with revolutionary ideas about healing through sunlight and fresh air, but decades of overcrowding transformed those ideals into underground tunnels, forgotten patients, and one of the deadliest accidental poisonings in American hospital history. Later came forced sterilizations, abandoned cremated remains hidden in a basement, Hollywood's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and ghost stories that still echo through the old wards. Tonight, we uncover the complicated history of Oregon's most infamous hospital.

Topics covered

• mental health
• history
• ghost stories
• Oregon
• hospital
• overcrowding
• forced sterilizations

Keywords

• Oregon State Hospital
• mental health
• ghost stories
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• overcrowding
• forced sterilizations
• history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Oregon State Hospital

Books & works: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Places: Oregon

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