Eloise Asylum, on Michigan Avenue in Westland, is a notorious former psychiatric hospital, which is said to be among the state’s most haunted places. The facility opened in the 1830s, originally as a poorhouse, although it soon expanded to become a psychiatric and medical facility. It eventually grew into a massive campus, consisting of more than 70 buildings over more than 900 acres of land. At its most crowded during the 1920s and 30s, it housed over 10,000 patients.  

Eloise was home to some significant medical milestones, including one of the first X-ray machines in the country and pioneering work in the field of liver transplants. However, it also saw darker periods of history.  

“In the 1830s, we had no modern understanding of mental health conditions or psychiatric disorders,” lead historian Adam Hachey said. “So a lot of these people were just confined to cells that were in the basements of different buildings, and they were literally just chained to the walls and forgotten about because we as a society and a culture just didn’t know what else to do with them.” 

Throughout its many years of operation, numerous people died there, including over 7,000 who are buried in unmarked graves in the asylum’s cemetery. The facility has long been said to be haunted, with staff and visitors reporting paranormal encounters.  

“I’ve seen shadow figures, I’ve had equipment physically moved and manipulated, I’ve been touched, I’ve been grabbed, I’ve had things whisper in my ear,” Hachey said. 

Eloise Asylum closed in the 1980s. It is now open as a haunt attraction during the Halloween season and home to historical tours and paranormal investigations throughout the year. 

One Detroit’s Chris Jordan and Andrea Riley visited Eloise. They learned about its history from Hachey, went on a paranormal investigation of the building with resident paranormal investigator Kenneth “Ace” Taylor, and went behind the scenes of the haunt with director of haunted attractions Raymond Fiddler and several of his scare actors.