Eloise (psychiatric Hospital) - The History of Eloise

The History of Eloise

Eloise was voted into existence as a poor house by Detroit voters in 1832. In 1839, Wayne county added a former stagecoach stop to the complex. It wasn't until 1911 that Eloise gained its most famous name from the near-by post office. In the 1930s Eloise was running at its best. The psychiatric hospital was self-sufficient, containing a dairy farm, its own fire department, and over 7000 people. In 1984 Eloise officially closed its doors and rapidly went into decay. There are now four buildings standing to this day. The Kay Beard Building faces front to Michigan Avenue. This building was a hospital, in which the patients would live on the top floors, and the nurses and manager lived on the bottom two floors. The manager's office is the first door on your left when you walk in. The other buildings that are left standing is an old powerhouse, built in the 1920s. That is behind the Kay Beard Building. There is a bakery and a firehouse left as well.

During its heyday, so many people wanted to be admitted that there weren't enough beds. Patients would offer to bring their own mattresses from home in exchange for their loved ones to be housed there.

Eloise Hospital became a dumping ground for the unwanted people of society. The poor, homeless, the ones without any family, and the insane all came to this place of hope for the hope of a new home with food and beds. There is a darkness to Eloise Hospital too. Much like hospitals of the 1930s-1960s, the form of treating insanity called Lobotomies became increasingly popular. When patients were not wanted by their families, they would be donated to science. In the Eloise tunnels, private lobotomies would be performed. One incident after Eloise Hospital had closed down, in a room of the tunnels, bits of brains were found in vials, most likely from lobotomies and from the study of the brain.

Inventor Elijah McCoy may be its most famous former resident.