Mansfield Training School and Hospital

Operating from 1860 until its 1993 closure, Mansfield Training School and Hospital housed and treated people with intellectual disabilities, and its history — including documented research practices now considered unethical — is significant enough that UConn's own Humanities Institute runs an ongoing memorial and research project examining its legacy. The University of Connecticut took over the grounds the same year it closed, and it now operates as UConn's Depot Campus; less than half of the 240-acre site is in active use, and many of the older buildings sit empty, overgrown, and off-limits. Visitors report an unsettled feeling around the vacant buildings and orbs in photographs taken outside and in their basements.