"As the asylum’s buildings were vacated, four were converted into prisons. One prison remains on the property today. In a separate facility, the Cook Building, the hospital houses 179 forensic patients (who have been found by courts to be not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial). Today only 14 non-forensic patients remain at Central State, all elderly people awaiting alternative placements," the Atlanta Magazine says

"A new organization is trying to preserve the campus. The Central State Hospital Local Redevelopment Authority was created in 2012 by the state to revitalize and repurpose the property. Led by Milledgeville native Mike Couch, the authority has worked with real estate experts to develop a plan for reusing the property for businesses, schools, and recreation. Central State’s grounds front the Oconee River and contain winding paths that the consultants envision as ideal for bicycle trails or a concert venue. The first new contract is decidedly more practical: A geriatric care facility for parolees will move into a former prison building.

"A tiny museum in an old railroad depot on the quad bears witness to the asylum’s tumultuous past. Segrest argues the importance of preserving the hospital’s history. Central State “impacted kinship networks all across the state, and many Georgians still carry painful shards of this history,” she says. “I believe that the truth can set us free, and the hospital’s history is one truth that needs more fully and collectively to be told.”

"Georgia's state mental asylum located in Milledgeville, Georgia, now known as the Central State Hospital (CSH), has been the state's largest facility for treatment of mental illness and developmental disabilities. In continuous operation since accepting its first patient in December 1842, the hospital was founded as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum, and was also known as the Georgia State Sanitarium and Milledgeville State Hospital during its long history.

"By the 1960s the facility had grown into the largest mental hospital in the world (contending with Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in New York). Its landmark Powell Building and the vast, abandoned 1929 Jones Building stand among some 200 buildings on two thousand acres that once housed nearly 12,000 patients.

"The CSH complex currently encompasses about 1,750 acres (710 ha), a pecan grove and historic cemeteries, and serves about 200 mental health patients. As of 2016 the facility offers short-stay acute treatment for people with mental illness, residential units and habilitation programs for people with developmental disabilities, recovery programs that require a longer stay, and specialized skilled and ICF nursing centers. Some programs serve primarily the central-Georgia region while other programs serve counties throughout the state." (Wikipedia)

"The abandoned buildings of Central State Hospital, now in a state of neglect and decay, once comprised the largest mental health facility the world had ever seen, with more than 200 buildings on 2,000 acres," the Atlas Obscura says.

"Today, a visit to the former Central State Hospital is an eerie experience. The property includes buildings given to a prison, the houses of former doctors, and a pecan grove, the hospital buildings themselves, as well as a cemetery of roughly 25,000 unmarked graves. Around 2,000 somber markers in the nearby Cedar Lane Cemetery memorialize these unknown dead.

"Security patrollers ensure that no one gets into the abandoned buildings, so visitors must be content to see the asylum from the outside. However a museum on the old campus has preserved artifacts from Central State Hospital so those curious can learn what life was like at the world’s largest insane asylum."

"Once a month, Milledgeville GA offers a tour of the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum. Tillman Barnett is the name of the first patient admitted here in 1842. He was from Macon, but did not enjoy a 30 min drive from his hometown; he arrived via horse and buggy. However, because of his feared mental illness, he was not allowed to ride in the buggy. He was chained to it, and forced to walk the entire distance. Before a year was up, he died at Central State from the exhaustion of the trip," the 365 Atlanta Traveler says.

"With 17,000 patients and 200 buildings, spread over 20,000 acres, it is by far the largest mental institution in the United States (and probably the world).

"It is currently a maximum secure forensics facility providing psychiatric evaluation, treatment and recovery services to 384 people referred from Georgia State Corrections who do not require a hospital-level of care but are unable to reintegrate directly into the community. The current name of the maximum secure forensics facility is the Payton B. Cook Building."

"Since its founding in 1842, the Central State Hospital Campus (originally known as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum) has been one of Milledgeville’s most well-known and complex sites," the Visit Milledgeville says.

"The site gained national recognition during the 1960s as the world’s largest mental institution with over 12,000 patients, 6,000 employees, and more than 8,000 acres of land. Today, Central State Hospital serves over 200 existing patients and has downsized to roughly 2,000 acres of land. 

"The campus is active throughout the year with various experiences available throughout the grounds. Just a short trip from Atlanta, here are a handful of can’t miss opportunities to explore the former Central State Hospital Campus further."

"Nearly 12,000 patients from all over the state once lived here, and it was the largest mental hospital in the world at one time. Today, the facility treats around 200 patients," the Only In Your State says.

"Central State Hospital was opened in 1842 as the "Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum" and has been in continuous operation ever since, though the name has been officially changed.

"The hospital once spanned over 2,000 acres, with 200 buildings. As standards for the care of mentally ill people have improved and the focus has moved away from institutionalization, the hospital has greatly downsized."

"A far cry from private facilities that resembled resorts more than hospitals, Central State developed a notorious reputation, performing lobotomies and shock therapy. Patients were segregated into dorms based on their gender, race, and area of origin, not their respective conditions," the Road Trippers says.

"In the 1950s, following the trauma of World War II, there was reportedly one medical professional for every 100 patients at Central State, with a total population of 13,000 patients. In 1959, Atlanta Constitution reporter Jack Nelson wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé about how the inmates were truly running the asylum, leading to much-needed reforms.

"Parts of Central State are still in use, including the industrial kitchen that was at one time the largest in the world. The former auditorium is used by Georgia Military College and the Payton Cook Building is now a forensic inpatient facility."

"Founded amid the social reform movements of the nineteenth century and expanded to one of the nation’s largest mental health institutions in the twentieth century, Central State Hospital at Milledgeville has been at the center of debates over the role of government in public health," the New Georgia Encyclopedia says.

"Care of patients was based on the “institution as family” model, which asserted that hospitals were best organized when they resembled extended families. This model was applied at Milledgeville under the leadership of Dr. Thomas A. Green, who served at the hospital from 1845 to 1879. Green ate with staff and patients daily and abolished such physical restraints as chains and ropes.

"The hospital became increasingly custodial as the population evolved from the acutely disturbed to the chronically ill and organically disabled, many of whom were veterans of the Civil War (1861-65) with little chance of successfully returning to their families. Freed African Americans also entered the institution for the first time in 1866, which previously had serviced white patients only."

"Locatated about 100 miles south-west of Atlanta, the small enclave of Milledgeville, Georgia is one of the state's oldest cities. But beyond its family-friend Main Street, old-timey trolley tours and antebellum-era mansion from the days when Milledgeville served as the state capital, this seemingly quaint city holds a dark secret," the BBC reports.

"Just a few miles from Milledgeville's historical downtown, the hulking, half-abandoned remains of the Central State Hospital serve as a grim reminder that this out-of-the-way outpost once housed one of the world's largest psychiatric hospitals.

"Now, a new tour is hoping to show just how far we've come in treating mental illness, and offer a sense of closure for the many local residents whose family members either worked at or were residents of the institution."

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