#the ridges

[iwouldexistwithoutyou]

Talor Smith in "The Lobotomy Room" October 29th 2010 Credit: Erin Raby "The Ridges" were a band from Athens Ohio and more specifically Ohio University that I was lucky enough to be attending college at while they were playing shows. In Athens there is a decommissioned Asylum that was named the "Athens Lunatic Asylum", it is known by locals as "The Ridges". The concept of this band (as I understood it) was that they were the ghosts of those who died in that asylum, returned to serenade us with their ghostly songs. Their sound I describe as "Ghost Folk", they incorporated cello, violin, brushed drums, and guitar into their sound and had three core members Victor Rasgaitis, Talor Smith, and Johnny Barton, but they very often would invite guest musicians on stage with them to play as well. Their songs were good, I mean their songs were damn good. Their music evoked a mood that I haven't quite been able to find since and I highly recommend giving them a listen. This album I've linked here was actually recording within the building "The Ridges". At the end of this post are some old photos (their photoshoots were also beautiful) where you can see the theme they were going for captured visually. One of my favorite things they ever did that sadly I just missed was when they played an eerily lit concert in the actual building of the asylum that is their namesake. They also did really cool video promos for their upcoming shows that are awesome performances in their own right. The last time I saw them was at a show in Dayton Ohio at Blind Bobs in 2013. The ridges stopped playing shows sometime in 2015 and their website domain was released in 2017. I am not sure why they stopped playing but most likely as all bands do it became too much work to keep up with their careers evolving. I hope you'll enjoy the ghosts of the past with me, pour yourself a whiskey, light a candle or two, and give "The Ridges" a listen. You won't regret it.

"I can't sleep alone You don't know the feeling You don't sleep alone Your bed isn't freezing" "You never existed, so you don't have a soul You don't have a soul, so you can't be a ghost You can't be a ghost, so you can't haunt my home You're just a figment of my imagination" "When I invented love I never meant for anyone to get hurt It seemed like a good idea After all it was only a word"

[codiemarin]

The things I’d do to / on her abs would get me added to a criminal watchlist.

[sapphiremaple]

the ridges

[middleland]

The Ridges at Ohio University (2) by Alan Atkinson

[holyshitdogz]

Family pics got canceled so we did some of our own! Awesome stuff for Halloween 🪦

[alleghenyfeverdreams]

Black maple from The Ridges in Athens Ohio, 2022. Available.

[myhauntedsalem]

Margaret Schilling

There is a stain on the top floor of the Athens State Hospital in the shape of a woman – Margaret Schilling – who died there nearly thirty years ago. Margaret’s story is shrouded in myth; some say she was a deaf mute who hid from the staff when they were vacating the hospital and ended up locked in the upstairs wing, unable to call out for help when she saw it was too late. The truth seems to be that she was simply a woman with profound mental disabilities who managed to lock herself in a ward which had been used for infectious patients and had been abandoned for years, on the top floor of ward N. 20. She disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979 that they found her, dead on the floor of heart failure, probably due to exposure in an unheated ward during the coldest part of winter. As she was dying, oddly enough, she took her clothes off, folded them neatly beside her, and laid down on the concrete floor.

Weeks later, her decomposing body was found lying on the floor next to a window. When authorities attempted to move her body, they found that it had made a permanent stain in the outline of the woman’s body on the concrete floor. It seems as though the stain had been caused by the combination of her body naturally decaying, coupled with its position in front of big bay windows that allowed the sunlight to shine down on her. Despite constant scrubbing, the stain would not come up. Even more, people walking past the asylum at night would sometimes see the ghostly image of a woman staring down at them from the window where the body was found.

It is true that her body left a stain. You can still see it today. People sometimes leave flowers and other trinkets around it. Some say that Margaret Schilling’s spirit wanders the building at night. They say that other patients, especially those who died at the hospital, also wander the building at night. Rumors about patients shackled in basement torture chambers add fuel to the legends.

Tours of the Ridges are a popular Halloween event in Athens—so popular, in fact, that they had to cancel one year’s tour because of the unmanageably huge turnout. Other parts of the grounds are off limits, however.