EVANSTON, Wyoming — The first building at the Wyoming State Hospital opened in 1889. Many Evanston residents worked there, serving patients with mental illness.
“It is the heart of our city,” said Jen Hegeman, City Council Member. “It has touched generations of people who have lived here.”
“There's also some tunnels that are under there,” said Tyfani Sager, member of the Evanston Historic Preservation Commission. “They say those were haunted. They could still be haunted.”
The Wyoming Department of Health shut down the hospital just a couple years ago and plans to demolish the historic brick buildings in July of 2024.
“The city officials over a year ago had called all of the real estate agents and had a meeting at the city building,” said Britany Erickson, Owner and Broker at Coldwell Banker Preferred Realtty. “’What can we do to bring more housing in?,’ and now you guys are not going to stand behind us getting more housing? It doesn't make sense.”
Dozens of community members are rallying to stop the demolition and have the buildings be repurposed into some kind of affordable housing. They are currently trying to gather signatures on an online petition to send to the governor of Wyoming.
“Those buildings are so readily and easily rehabbed to turn into housing,” said Erickson. “We could have hundreds of units within six months probably. It is insane to tear those buildings down, and it is a tragedy.”
Despite the Department of Health arguing the old buildings are beyond repair, recent photos shared on the Save the old WSH Facebook page show the units just need some fixing up, said Kayne Pyatt, a member of the Evanston Historic Preservation Commission.
“I would love it if they put senior housing up there,” she said. “I would live there, and the view if you go up there and look at the view all around and the landscaping, it's absolutely incredible.”
It would cost almost as much to demolish the buildings as it would to restore them, at a time when Wyoming faces a housing crisis and the highest suicide rates in the country, said Hegeman.
“It's sitting right there,” she said. “I mean, it's just, it's cruel. It's like the governor and everyone up on the hill doesn't care about the needs of the people.”
FOX 13 News has reached out to the Wyoming Department of Health multiple times over the last two months and still has not heard back.
