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Reported phenomena — as catalogued
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Nevada's first psychiatric hospital buried 767 patients in tin-marked graves from 1882 to 1949; a pipeline later cut through the graves, and children found bones in the yard in the 1970s.
480 Galletti Way, Reno, NV 89512
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The memorial obelisk and grounds are publicly accessible at no charge.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat paved path to the memorial obelisk on NNMHS campus grounds.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1881 · Nevada's first state psychiatric facility · 767 patients buried in unmarked graves 1882-1949 · Burial ground desecrated by pipeline and repurposed as playground · 2011 public memorial obelisk listing all known names
Nevada's first state asylum opened in 1881 on what was then an isolated 92-acre site outside Reno, built to house the territory's growing population of patients deemed mentally ill. The institution operated under several names across its history — Nevada Insane Asylum, Nevada State Hospital, and eventually Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services — but its early decades were defined by the same conditions that characterized underfunded territorial psychiatric care elsewhere: overcrowding, minimal resources, and patient anonymity in death.
From 1882 to 1949, the hospital interred at least 767 patients in a dedicated burial field on the campus grounds. The graves were shallow, and the only markers were small numbered tin plates pressed into the earth. No permanent monuments, no family notifications in many cases, and no maintenance plan. The numbered plates corresponded to institutional records, but as those records degraded and the plates corroded, a significant portion of the buried became untraceable.
The burial ground's condition worsened actively rather than through passive neglect. At some point after operations expanded and the old cemetery section fell out of official use, a utility pipeline was installed through the graves, physically disrupting the burial field. The disturbed ground was later leveled and repurposed — first as a playground for staff and patients, then as a dog park for the surrounding neighborhood. In the 1970s, children playing on the grounds discovered human bones surfacing from the soil.
The discovery triggered renewed attention to the forgotten cemetery. Researchers and advocates spent subsequent decades documenting the 767 individuals whose names could be recovered from surviving records. On January 12, 2011, a public granite obelisk memorial was dedicated on the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services campus, listing all 767 known names. The memorial stands as the only acknowledgment of the burial ground that remains beneath the grounds.
Sources
The Nevada Insane Asylum Historic Cemetery does not have a long documented tradition of ghost sightings — its story is one where the documented history is disturbing enough that the site has become a focal point for paranormal interest almost by default. Paranormal researchers and dark-tourism visitors who document visits to the memorial obelisk report a general sense of unease on the grounds, occasional cold spots near the known burial field, and what some describe as unexplained audio phenomena during evening visits.
The more specific accounts circulate on Nevada paranormal forums and ghost-walk aggregators: a figure observed near the obelisk after dark who disappears when approached, children's voices in an area where no children are present, and electromagnetic field disturbances measured by investigators around the perimeter of the burial area. None of these accounts have been documented in local news or academic sources, and they are presented here as unverified informal reports.
The site's dark-tourism significance rests more firmly on documented history than on folklore. A utility pipeline physically disturbed the graves. Human bones surfaced under playing children. For seventy years, the 767 buried had no public memorial. That record is the reason the site draws visitors.
Visit the public obelisk memorial dedicated January 12, 2011, which lists the 767 known burials from 1882 to 1949. The burial field lies beneath what became a playground and later a dog park. The memorial stands on the grounds of Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services and is freely accessible during daylight hours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Topeka, KS
Topeka State Hospital operated as a Kansas public psychiatric institution from 1872 until its closure on May 17, 1997. Over its history it became notorious for documented patient neglect and abuse, including prolonged restraint and forced sterilizations under Kansas's 1913 eugenics law. The historic buildings were demolished in 2010, leaving a patient cemetery as the principal surviving feature.
Talmage, CA
Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane opened in 1893 on a 488-acre campus outside Ukiah. Under California's 1909 eugenics law, the facility performed forced sterilizations on patients. Roughly 1,600 patients died at the hospital across its 79 years of operation; approximately 400 were buried in a mass grave at Ukiah's Russian River Cemetery, marked by a single granite headstone. The hospital closed in 1972. The Buddhist community City of Ten Thousand Buddhas purchased the site in 1974, and all original buildings survive.
New Castle, DE
Delaware's first public psychiatric institution opened in 1889 as the Delaware State Hospital for the Insane at Farnhurst. Hundreds of patients who died at the facility without family to claim them were interred in an on-site potter's field with numbered rather than named markers. Most original buildings were demolished by the 1990s, but the cemetery was identified, restored, and memorialized in 2016 — 777 graves are now documented.