We survived Bartonville!!!
Despite the very chilly temperatures, we had a great time touring through this very old institution. As I said in my earlier post, Bartonville has a very interesting history. It is located a few miles outside of downtown Peoria, Illinois. The asylum used to take up 1100 acres in Bartonville, but is now contained to about five acres total. (if that!) Don't let the pictures fool you. There are a lot of retail stores and restaurants around this building so it is not as isolated as it appears. The building is 60,000 square feet, no windows and has several floors which are partially blocked off due to unstable infrastructure. According to the current owner, he would like to open it up as a haunted B & B and maybe some retail establishments. I know that there are a lot of folks out there who just love staying at haunted hotels and B & B's so this will be a winner for him for sure!
Of course I would be remiss if I failed to mention our hosts for the evening. Renowned Ghost Hunter Patti Starr and the infamous Medium Chip Coffey (Psychic Kids and Paranormal State) led us through the building and shared some of their ghost hunting wisdom (and stories!) with us. Patti and Chip have worked together for many many years and brought a lot of useful information to us regarding their shared experiences.
Our team collected lots of pictures, analog and digital recordings from our six hour ghost hunt. We will be processing that information and hopefully will have something to show for it! Once we have something I will definitely updated the site with any fun EVPs or pictures we managed to catch.
If you have not been to Bartonville, they are open for tours at any time. They do charge a nominal fee for this privilege but all proceeds go to the Save the Bowen fund which has been set up to aid in renovations of this historic site. I highly recommend Bartonville for your next ghost hunt!
