Dixmont State Hospital on the river bluff
From the Ohio River Boulevard, most people noticed Dixmont first by the boiler building and smokestack, which rose above Route 65.
The main hospital sat back from the road on a wooded bluff overlooking the Ohio River, screened by trees and easy to ignore if you never had a reason to go up there.
That layout kept patients out of public view and gave everyone else space to talk. People called it the “crazy house up on the hill.” Tunnel stories circulated in the area…