Haunted places guide · Preston, Connecticut

Norwich State Hospital, Preston: The Haunted Asylum and What Is Left

For 92 years this hilltop campus above the Thames River was Connecticut’s second state asylum. Its ghost stories made it famous. Today almost every building is gone.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate places

3.2/5Haunted Rooms Score
1904Opened
1996Closed

Our nearest ghost hunt: Captain Grant's 1754Meet the ghosts

Demolished: no longer open to visitors

Nearly all of Norwich State Hospital’s buildings on the Preston side have been demolished since 2011, and the land is being cleaned up for the Mohegan Tribe’s planned Preston Riverwalk development. The site is closed. Please do not trespass; this guide is kept as a record of the hospital and its stories.

Norwich State Hospital stood on Route 12 in Preston, just south of Norwich, on a long slope above the Thames River. From a single building and 95 patients in 1904 it grew into a campus of dozens of Gothic and Colonial Revival buildings holding more than 3,000 people, and for decades it was where Connecticut sent many of its mentally ill, its tuberculosis patients and people with addictions.

It closed in 1996, and for the next 15 years its empty halls drew trespassers, photographers and paranormal TV crews. Ghost Hunters investigated in 2010. Since 2011 almost all of the buildings have been torn down, and the land is due to become the Preston Riverwalk. Here is the hospital’s history, the stories told about it, and what remains.

Norwich State Hospital at a glance

3.2/5
Haunted Rooms Score
Haunted reputation4
History4
Ghost hunter access1
Closed to visitorsNo ghost hunting
  • Location Route 12 (Laurel Hill area), Preston and Norwich, CT
  • Opened October 1904, as the Norwich State Hospital for the Insane
  • Peak 3,184 patients (1955 average)
  • Closed October 1996
  • Status Demolished on the Preston side; Administration Building kept for restoration; site closed
  • Reported ghosts Screams in the Salmon Building, a sobbing woman, phantom equipment, children
  • Visiting Closed: do not trespass

Our nearest ghost hunt: Captain Grant's 1754

History of Norwich State Hospital

Connecticut opened its second state hospital for the insane in October 1904, with Dr. Henry M. Pollock as its first superintendent and 95 patients in a single building. It filled almost at once: 151 patients by 1905, 998 by 1913, 2,422 by 1930 and close to 3,000 by 1939. New buildings rose across the hillside, designed in Colonial Revival and Late Gothic Revival styles by the firm of Cudworth and Woodworth, and the 1908 Administration Building became the campus’s landmark.

The hospital treated more than mental illness. Over the years it took tuberculosis patients and people with alcohol and drug dependency, and it had a maximum-security unit, the Salmon Building, for patients judged criminally insane. Its population peaked at an average of 3,184 in 1955. The giant Ronald H. Kettle Treatment Center, about 250,000 square feet, opened around 1960 just as new drugs began to empty the wards.

By 1994 the hospital had 649 beds, and in October 1996 it closed; the remaining patients moved to Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. In 1988 its central campus had been listed on the National Register as a 70-acre historic district with 40 contributing buildings. In 2009 the state sold about 393 acres on the Preston side to the town for one dollar, with the town taking on the cleanup.

Demolition began in 2011. The Salmon, Awl and Cafeteria-Theater buildings came down that year, Ribicoff, the power plant and the chapel in 2012, and work continued for years under the Preston Redevelopment Agency and Manafort Brothers, who removed about 1.4 million square feet of buildings in all. In 2016 the town agreed to sell the land to the Mohegan Tribe, which plans a non-gaming destination called the Preston Riverwalk with attractions, a hotel, restaurants, housing and a marina. Cleanup was still going on in 2024. The Administration Building has been weatherized to be saved, and on the Norwich side, a separate 50-acre part of the old hospital got state brownfield money in 2025 for assessment.

The ghost stories of Norwich State Hospital

The Salmon Building

The most famous stories come from the Salmon Building, the maximum-security unit with steel doors and barred rooms. Former nurses and later trespassers spoke of screaming from inside, and of doors scraping open on upper floors when the only entrance was on the ground floor. The building was demolished in 2011.

The sobbing woman and the operating rooms

Ghost hunters who got inside described a woman sobbing in empty corridors, disembodied voices, objects moving and doors slamming. Security guards were said to hear beeping and the rattle of instruments from old treatment rooms, as if an operation were under way. These accounts have been passed along by paranormal websites and our own older guide; none is documented.

Children on the second floor

A story from the hospital’s working years says nurses saw children on the second floor of a ward where no children were housed. It is a common type of asylum tale, and we could not trace it to a named witness.

On TV, and a note of caution

VH1’s Celebrity Paranormal Project filmed two episodes here, renaming it the Warson Asylum for the Criminally Insane, and Syfy’s Ghost Hunters investigated in an episode that aired on May 5, 2010. A writer in The Day in 2024, looking back with former staff, rejected the ghost stories outright, calling claims that psychiatric hospitals are haunted disrespectful to people living with mental illness. Abuses and suicides did happen here, and the people who lived and worked at Norwich deserve to be remembered as people first.

Where to look

  • The Administration Building: the 1908 Gothic landmark, kept for restoration. Seen only from outside the site.
  • The Salmon Building: the maximum-security unit at the heart of the ghost stories. Demolished in 2011.
  • The Kettle building: the largest building on campus, also demolished.
  • The tunnels: service tunnels near the Administration Building were collapsed in 2011.

Can you visit Norwich State Hospital?

No. The site is a closed redevelopment and remediation area, with almost nothing left standing, and trespassing is not allowed. When the Preston Riverwalk opens, parts of the land should become public again, but that is still in the future.

If you want to investigate a historic building in this corner of Connecticut, you can do it legally just a few minutes away. Captain Grant’s, 1754 in Preston, a colonial inn that calls itself the state’s most haunted, is where Haunted Rooms runs overnight ghost hunts. Fairfield Hills in Newtown, Connecticut’s other big state hospital, has public trails around its surviving buildings.

  • Visiting Closed redevelopment site; buildings demolished

Tips for your visit

  • Do not visit: the site is closed and almost entirely demolished.
  • Book a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt at Captain Grant’s, 1754, a few minutes away.
  • Walk the public trails at Fairfield Hills to see a surviving state hospital campus.
  • Follow the Preston Riverwalk plans for future public access.

Go ghost hunting nearby

Visiting a haunted place by day is one thing. Investigating one after dark is another. On a Haunted Rooms ghost hunt our team takes you through a historic building with professional ghost hunting equipment, runs EVP sessions and vigils, and gives you time to explore on your own. These are the nearest ones we run.

See all Haunted Rooms ghost hunts

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Frequently asked questions

Is Norwich State Hospital still standing?

Almost entirely no. Nearly all of its buildings on the Preston side have been demolished since 2011; the Administration Building has been kept for restoration.

Can you visit Norwich State Hospital?

No. It is a closed cleanup and redevelopment site.

When did Norwich State Hospital close?

In October 1996. Its remaining patients moved to Connecticut Valley Hospital.

What is being built at Norwich State Hospital?

The Mohegan Tribe plans the Preston Riverwalk, a non-gaming destination with attractions, a hotel, restaurants, housing and a marina.

Was Norwich State Hospital on Ghost Hunters?

Yes. Syfy’s Ghost Hunters investigated in an episode aired on May 5, 2010.

What was the Salmon Building?

The hospital’s maximum-security building for patients judged criminally insane, and the center of its ghost stories. It was demolished in 2011.

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

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About the authors

The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every place in our guides using official sites, historic registers, local archives and news coverage, and we report ghost stories as the stories they are. We review each guide regularly so you are not sent to a place that has closed, changed hands or banned visitors. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.