page_title: Ashmore Estates
section_title: Abandonment and controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Ashmore Estates / History / Abandonment and controversy
caption_attribution_description: English: Ashmore Estates exterior, after its purchase by Scott and Tanya Kelley.
context_page_description: Ashmore Estates is a historic building outside Ashmore, Illinois, United States.
  This former almshouse, once part of the Coles County Poor Farm, was built in 1916 and operated until 1959, when it was purchased by Ashmore Estates, Inc. for use as a private psychiatric care facility. Ashmore Estates closed in 1986 and stood abandoned until 2006, when it was opened as a commercial haunted house. Local historian and author Michael Kleen presented a paper on the history of Ashmore Estates and the Coles County Poor Farm at the 2010 Conference on Illinois History in Springfield.
context_section_description: It would be three years before anyone endeavoured to re-open the institution. In 1990, Paul Swinford, in conjunction with a Tennessee company known as Corrections Corporation of America, attempted to turn Ashmore Estates into a mental health facility for teenage boys. On the night of December 18, the Ashmore Village Board rejected Swinford's request for a zoning permit five to zero, effectively dooming the project over concerns related to fire safety, as well as consideration for public opposition. On Halloween night in 1995, a fire destroyed an outbuilding that sat across the lawn from the front entrance of the main building, where the poor farm superintendent's house once stood. The outbuilding had been used to teach motor skills to the developmentally disabled prior to the facility's closure in 1987.
  In 1998, a resident of Sullivan named Arthur Colclasure paid $12,500 for the property and announced that he planned to renovate the building and turn it into his home. However, continuous vandalism prevented him from ever realising his plans.
caption: Ashmore Estates, c. 2006
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