Perhaps one of the best-known, infamous, and historic hospitals in the state of Georgia, Central State sits in the former capital city of Milledgeville. Its history spans over 100 years from opening in 1842 and has been known as “Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum”, “Georgia State Sanitarium”, and “Midgeville State Hospital”. It once housed nearly 12,000 patients in the 1960’s, dwindling to only about 9,000 by 2005. In 2010 the hospital was closed and has sat deteriorating ever since, causing a significant economic impact to both the city and county. As part of redevelopment efforts on the campus, I went with a group of photographers to document the state of several building, including Bostick (1950), Walker (1886), Green (1910), and Jones (1928). I covered Bostick in another thread, and only had enough time to explore Walker and parts of Jones due to our time constraints (which were several hours). The reason for this was simple: the Walker building had been abandoned since the mid 70’s, leading to 30 years of neglect destroying the roof in the front portion of the building and causing the most widespread decay and source for interesting photos. As for the Jones building, despite being closed in the late 70’s has fared better and the morgue has always been the most popular destination for photographers of the macabre–and was the only building where we found some remaining medical equipment.
