Another Ridges Blog... BLOGO CUATRO!

Blog 4: Past and Present One of the first things I did as a freshman here at Ohio University was go and explore the ridges. I feel that is one of the main things to complete on a freshman’s “to-do” list once coming to Ohio university. Although I found it very creepy I also thought of it as peaceful and very still. I’m sure many other people are writing blogs about the ridges for this assignment, but the ridges is something that we all view as part of the history of Ohio university and Athens. The ridges first opened on January 9, 1874, it was populated heavily with civil war veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. The asylum used many techniques of rehabilitation that we find today to be very inhumane and ineffective. They performed shock therapy and lobotomies which have now been replaced by medicine. In 1924 the tuberculosis ward was built to house those with TB. Recently the city of Athens decided to demolish the building, which has caused many historical activists to protest it as a landmark. The final patients left the ridges in 1993 and today it is used as a art museum and offices.