Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane and Other Research

I hope to get back into writing mode this week.  *Fingers crossed*

While not writing over the last few weeks, I've been plotting and outlining several stories.  Maybe that counts.  In one of the novels, which I outlined during a parent orientation, the main character does some time in a mental institution in Kentucky in 1940 just before they stopped doing electroshock therapy.

I found several pictures of the mental hospital, Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane, which has since been demolished if my sources are correct.  The site with the best picture, the one I wanted to post, says the information is copyrighted and that consent must be obtained to reproduce it.  And it lists no email address or phone number that I can find to request this information. 

It looks like the picture that I so desperately want to post here was taken from a book that's out of print.  I hope the web site (that won't allow me to reproduce the picture) got permission from the author.  There are three used copies of the book available on Amazon for just under $100, which seems a bit pricey. 

Here's the link if you want to see the picture and/or read the background information.  http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyjeffer/CentralState/CentralStateHospital.html

The story will not be an ode to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Only one chapter will be set in the mental hospital, although the character will be plagued with mental illness throughout the second half of the book.  How she and her family cope with it will be the fun part to write I think.

Mostly the stories I intend to write in this series are about how people in rural Appalachia survived during a period where things were unbelievably difficult.  The more research I do, the more I realize how easy I have it.  And the more I see how I actually have a lot of things in common with my ancestors. 

As I dig through the history of this time period (1830's through 1940's) and region, I think I'll post some of my research here.  Hopefully I'm not the only one that finds it to be intriguing.