Well-run mental institutions can be wonderful places of hope and healing, where our most vulnerable citizens are given the care they need. But we also have in our collective conscious a vision of old-school insane asylums where patients were subjected to crude and even cruel treatments. One of the most notorious institutions in Iowa is Edinburgh Manor in Scotch Grove. It has a chilling history that dates all the way back to 1850. While it’s abandoned now, it still stands, a lonely building located in rural Iowa.
This creepy asylum plays on our worst fears, with abandoned rooms left to rot, stories of a terrifying and aggressive ghost named “The Joker” and the echoes of a dark past haunting every inch of the building and the grounds, including the onsite graveyard.