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You are here: Home / abandoned buildings / Canned Soul

Canned Soul

August 17, 2008 urngarden.com

Politicians had been talking for years about the need to replace the Oregon State Hospital, but didn’t get serious about it until a group of legislators made a grim discovery during a 2004 tour: the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters in a storage room. The lawmakers were stunned.

“Nobody said anything to anybody,” said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, who dubbed the chamber “the room of lost souls.”

The remains belonged to patients who died at the hospital from the late 1880s to the mid-1970s, when mental illness was considered so shameful that many patients were all but abandoned by their families in institutions.

After doing some research into the story, Photographer David Maisel got in touch with the hospital administrators – the same hospital, it turns out, where they once filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – and he was granted access to the room in which the canisters were stored.

Maisel set up a temporary photography studio inside the hospital itself. There, he began photographing the canisters one by one.

His book, Library of Dust, will be released later this summer.

Tip of the Hat to: Cleanser

Filed Under: abandoned buildings, art, cremation, mental health Tagged With: abandoned buildings, art, Library of Dust, mental health, One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest, oregon state hospital

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarBusplunge says

    August 18, 2008 at 9:51 AM

    I just did a google street view of the place. It is in Salem Oregon, Oregon State Hospital. The satellite image is interesting also.

    Lots of trees….looks like they were well watered.

  2. AvatarLenette says

    August 18, 2008 at 10:06 AM

    Is it still standing? I know the new facility was supposed to be done by Fall of 2008.

  3. Avatarcandace says

    August 18, 2008 at 2:40 PM

    OH my gosh, what a story. I’d love to see more of the photos of the urns.

  4. Avatarlmhall says

    August 18, 2008 at 4:57 PM

    Candace, click on the links for “granted access” and “David Maisel” to see more.

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