St. Joseph, Missouri: Glore Psychiatric Museum

A giant "human hamster" treadmill is only one of many intriguing displays in a museum that shows how hard it is to make people sane.

If you're locked in an insane asylum, maybe the only way to get your message out is through the TV.

This museum is amazing, horrifying, educational and touching. Use the bathrooms -- they're themed! Glore Psychiatric Museum is a great way to learn about the experience of mental illness/health, and the societal response through history. Expect to spend some time, as the exhibits are detailed and fascinating.

Don't forget to visit the attached museums dedicated to the history of St. Joseph, which includes a vast collection of Native American artifacts and the Black Archives.

One of a kind museum with a massive collection of antique psychiatric equipment, as well as fascinating patient artifacts!

The Glore state lunatic asylum was established in 1874 and was in operation for 130 years. Surgical tools, treatment equipment, furnishings, nurse uniforms, personal notes, and other items from the hospital are on display. However, this place was a true house of horrors. All manner of creepy apparatus are on display, from a large wooden guinea pig wheel (where patients would walk until exhausted) to a wooden gallows (minus the rope) which dropped patients into a huge tub of ice water.

In one display case there are over 400 items that one patient swallowed, causing her death, including nails, paper clips, safety pins, buttons, rocks... just about anything imaginable.