The South Carolina State Hospital: Stories from Bull Street (Landmarks)

"Despite the often dark picture painted around Bull Street, one of captivity and chaos, Buchheit's collected vignettes shed light on life inside. The common theme of the stories is that despite suffering from mental illnesses, the patients were no less human. This conversation and message are as relevant today as they were during the hospital's operation." Grand Strand Magazine

Nearly two decades after it closed, the South Carolina State Hospital continues to hold a palpable mystique in Columbia and throughout the state.

Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823, despite an operating budget that ranked forty-fifth out of the forty-eight states. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror and chaos. Author William Buchheit details this history through the words and interviews of those who worked on the iconic campus.

For nearly two decades now, William Buchheit has worked as a journalist in Upstate South Carolina. He has won dozens of South Carolina Press Association Awards and was named 2011 "Reporter of the Year" by South Carolina's chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). In recent years, he has become a part-time college English instructor and acclaimed wildlife photographer whose photos of the great white shark have been published by National Geographic and the Smithsonian. This is his first book. He lives in Greer, South Carolina.