The Ridges legends and lore are an historic part of Athens and Ohio University history.   The Forgotten Ohio Ridges site gives a general overview of the history of the Ridges  and some of the public’s perceptions of what its history is.  The Kirkbride Buildings site has information about the Ridges and other mental hospitals that were designed to follow the ideas of Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. 

Alden Library also has some great sources about the Ridges.  Two of the online ones are Asylum and community : connections between the Athens Lunatic Asylum and the village of Athens, 1867-1893 and the library’s own page, Athens Mental Health Center and The Ridges.

We have  The Athens Asylum, a DVD about the Ridges that you can check out from our Media Library on the 2nd floor. For those doing serious research, the Archives on the 5th floor of Alden Library has some great books you can look at, The Athens State Hospital , The Athens state hospital, Athens, Ohio : history, grounds & facilities, floor plans, plot plans , and Views in and about Athens Asylum for the Insane. Be aware, though, that you can’t check these archival items from the library; you can read them in the Archives Reading Room.

There is also a gallery of 75 photos of The Ridges in the Libraries’ digital collection.

Writer Joshua Dysart and artist Ron Wimberly have written a graphic novel about one of the Ridges legends called “The Stain.”  See their work online at the above link, and read all about how they came up with the project here.

A virtual tour of the Ridges and infographic of Ridges history are both available at the 2009 Soul of Athens site.

Update: Be sure to see the October 22 posting about the scientific analysis of one of the ghost stories about The Ridges.