Setting...Location...Desolation!
Hey there again, seems the first time I tried this it didn’t fare so well. I hope it will work this second time at least. I’m going to be giving you some basic setting on Urban Island™ which will come in handy while you’re on the edge of your seats at home.
The main setting is in an area of Elijah county, outside of the now forsaken city of Joy. The main area centers on a suburb called Sunshine, although…the name is not at all like the actual place. Sunshine was abandoned in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the steel factory in Joy closed down forever. Slowly people began moving away in search of jobs, food, and a better life. What is left of Sunshine is about 10 city blocks of deserted buildings falling to pieces. Further into the city of Joy, once home to 11,000 people…now only home to the pests - spiders, rats, and crows. Wild and stray dogs often prowl the areas in the downtown urban environments, so it’s wise if one doesn’t go too far into the city. A once booming commercial sector, now rusts into the ground. Apartment buildings, office high-rises, factories, all now rotting away, corroded by the weather and time.
Anne Murray Asylum
That’s the place where our contestants will be living and maybe even dying. It’s based off of a real asylum that now sits barren and unused in Western Kentucky. Although the history is similar, everything is not exact. The asylum is not a place for the timid. Here’s the description…and if it allows this time, a few pictures.
“Closed down in the mid 1970s for good, the building has a long, colorful past. The Victorian building was built in 1866, the original owner suffered tragically from the death of her only son...her husband abandoned her because she was going a bit nuts. In her mid 40s after going through "the change" and having no other children or suitors - she commits suicide.
In 1887 the house was taken by Elijah county due to back taxes. It became a county ran prison where executions were held. The prison closed down in 1919 after several prisoners escaped and murdered 30 people in the surrounding areas before being caught and killed.
However the building wouldn't stay closed a full year until an epidemic of TB forced the doors to once again reopen, this time in 1920 as a hospital for those who are terminally ill. It remained open until the end of World War II, in 1946 the general hospital was closed down.
Later the same year, the county officials sold the property to a private doctor, an upcoming psychologist. After many deliberations about the name of the building it was reopened in the summer of 1947.
Remaining open through the next near three decades, even with allegations of mistreatment, abuse, and even experimental procedures until the state finally closed down the Anne Murray Asylum due to the decrepit shape it had gotten in.”
Not a single thing in the asylum has been touched, cleaned, or anything more than glanced at in fear for the past thirty years or so. Layers of dust float around - and when we first arrived we noticed something we absolutely loved… Thick fog that rolls in from about 11 PM until a bit after the break of dawn at 6 AM! This was wonderful news to us because it meant that we didn’t need to take time in trying to set up fog machines. ^^
The oldest sections of the asylum date back to the house’s creation in 1866 - and in my honest opinion - one of the spookiest…the graveyard! Low lighting causes the fog in the area to look thick and black…like a dingy, filthy color. The basement is also a part of the original house…although access to it has long since been denied, as the staircase leading to it has been removed in previous renovations.
The grounds where the patio now is, was the area where prisoners were hung until dead. Actually, the patio decking is overtop of the boards of what used to be the floor of the gallows. This was the main viewing area where the whole town would come to see the executions.
The fountain was added in 1927 for a beautification project to make the patients feel a bit more comfortable in their last days on Earth. Several other statues were also added, the iron gating and fence that now surrounds the whole property was added in the mid 1930s, just before the start of World War II in Europe.
The latest sections of the asylum are the re-wallpapered rooms, fireplaces that adorn the main hall and the library were built as office decorations for the in-house doctors and staff. The duel-car garage was also added as well as the stone pathways and the large statue of the first owner. They were also constructed on the grounds as a way to make it look somewhat pleasing to the eye. The last thing to be done was the flowers, now dead, but the grounds were once covered in roses, tulips, and wild flowers.
That eerie black fog. A view from inside. Fog under the show’s hearse.
Gates of the Anne Murray. Fog around the fountain. One of the decrepit rooms.
Thanks for reading and seeing the pictures. Stay tuned for more!