Cemetery Tours, Investigations and Seances - April through O
Cemetery tours are Seasonal -Please look for us from May thru October
Bluff Cemetery & Hillside Cemetery aka Potters Field, both cemeteries in Elgin, Illinois
Our Graveyard and Cemetery tours are in Elgin just near Chicago
Hillside Cemetery - Elgin IL.
We offer Cemetery Tours and Investigations
A hospital with its own cemetery or graveyard may seem odd today, but not so in the past. Before the mid-20th century, cemeteries were often part of institutional settings such as prisons, county poor farms, seminaries, specialized schools and public hospitals. A ghostly experience you don't want to miss.
Elgin Mental Health Center opened in1872
Between 1910 and 1950 the inpatient census at EMHC, rose from 1,450 to more than 5,000.
During the 1930s, psychiatric hospitals opened or enlarged, their cemeteries. The Depression made it difficult for families to purchase burials and the state mental hospitals began providing these services. EMHC first burial took place on Oct. 27, 1933.
The story of the cemetery and graveyard in Elgin near Chicago.
EMHC graves
Diagnoses at EMHC such as dementia, stroke, and advanced stages of syphilis were commonplace along with severe mental disorders. When the patients died and the bodies could not be returned to the families for burial, the remains were turned over to authorities. At that point the dead were buried at the Hillside Cemetery - Known as "The Potters Field" (The Graveyard) just outside of Chicago.