The Sedro-Woolley Asylum AKA Northern State Hospital was once the largest hospital for the mentally ill in the state of Washington. It's Grand inauguration was in 1912 and was then closed in 1973 after the state legislator cut off funding. The psychiatric clinic was said to have held up to 2700 patients at one point around the 1950's and 1500 of them are buried in the Sedro-Woolley Asylum Cemetery. People that would qualify as mentally ill back then were schizophrenics, had menopausal depression, epileptics, alcoholics, substance abusers, even social in conformists. Treatments included trans orbital lobotomies, experimental use of new drugs and other unethical methods. The sad part is that the 1500 patients that died in the hands and care of the Sedro-Woolley Asylum never even got a proper headstone in their Cemetery. It is unknown if it was HIPAA purposes or families simply didn't want their last names associated with the asylum. Patients were either dropped off by family members or the state and left there. It wasn't until fairly recently a large headstone was made to honor all 1500 bodies buried at the Sedro-Woolley Asylum Cemetery.

We visited the cemetery first and when you arrive, it looks like an ordinary field of grass with patches of Daisies sporadically throughout the location. The sky was blue, the wind was fierce and there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness in my throat which lingered to the top of my stomach. A feeling of Solitude and depression took over, and the other girls felt it too. You would randomly see a small headstone with numbers and initials on it. We immediately started our EVP session, EVP is electromagnetic voice phenomenon. It creates White Noise which is then altered by spirits and transformed into words, giving them a chance to communicate with us.

These are just some of the words that appeared on our EVP player: Murder, Ceiling, Ravine, Beth, Covered, All of it. It seems as if a spirit was telling us that there was a nurse named Beth who murdered them and it was covered up. Was there really a nurse named Beth? This just motivates us to further investigate who the medical staff was in Washington State's largest Asylum. After saying a prayer, we headed down to the ruins.

The ruins were so beautiful in a Twisted way. Roofs were caved in, paint was peeling off the walls, pieces of glass decorated the floors, and plants took over windows and doorways of what used to be the Northern State Hospital. It was a really windy day and as we walked through the building's ( which you are not supposed to do :) you can hear shutters slamming, footstep sounds on the tin roofs and although we know it was the wind, you couldn't help but Wonder, was it really? We didn't get nearly as much EVP activity at the ruins as we did in the cemetery, but Javonne was able to communicate with a spirit who talked about "fear". When we asked what it feared it responded with the word "become". We hung out at the picnic table that was in the center of these amazing ruins for a while before we decided to head home. The odd part was that it was sunny  when we started to walk back to the car but then it started to rain which turned into hail. If you are into haunted places or just like adventure, I highly recommend coming to the Sedro-Woolley Asylum. It's inexpensive and a great way to learn about our Evergreen States history. I posted pics below for you to see what is left of the Northern State Hospital.  Also, Check out our haunted interviews page where we speak to a former employee of the currently active drug rehab center. I hope you enjoyed our spread on the Sedro-Woolley Asylum and thanks for reading!