Chapter 1 - The Founder Named for its founder (below), the Scott Bream Sanitarium opened its doors in the Spring of 1889 as Utah’s first government sanctioned halfway house for the mentally unstable.  Unknown to newly appointed governor Arthur Thomas, Dr. Bream had once been a leading researcher at the Hanwell Insane Asylum in West London (pictured right).  What documents still exist, credit him with being one of the first to theorize about the use of lobotomization, electroshock, and even hypnosis to treat mental disease.  Little did anyone know, to the doctor, such treatments were much more than a theory.  No one knew quite how long and to what extent he had been experimenting on the patients at Hanwell, but once discovered, he was immediately forced out of Europe and all record of his work and presence at the facility vanished.  He and his personal servant made their way to the United States in hopes of furthering his experiments in the fledgling nation.  Chapter 2 - The Beginning of the Beginning The sanitariums stated purpose was to support the area’s one and only mental institution, the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum (pictured left), with their mission to "Treat the mentally ill and return them to a normal level of functioning".  The intent was for the home to take in patients no longer considered a danger to society by the asylum, and help them complete the final steps of rehabilitation so they could be reintegrated back into the world.  And by all appearances, for 4 years this is what they did.  More recently discovered historical documents indicate the governments motivation was to simply alleviate overcrowding at the asylum, while Dr. Bream’s motivation was much more devious even than that.  Due to the local communities fear of mental illness, the sanitarium was shrouded in the utmost secrecy, which suited the doctor just fine.  Chapter 3 - The Beginning of the End Even with expansions at the asylum in 1890 and 1891 (pictured right), the facility had become so over populated, by the fall of 1893 they began releasing patients to the halfway house at an alarming rate, and well before they were ready.  To keep up, the staff was faced with finding new methods of rehabilitation to deal with the now overwhelming volume of patients.  Dr. Bream could not have hoped for a better situation.  He was now able to bring his years of devious experiments and ideas out of hiding and present them to the staff.  Initially the ideas met with much resistance, but not willing to release patients while they still posed a threat to society, doctors and nurses in the home finally agreed.  Chapter 4 - The Experiments Doctors introduced a very crude and primitive version of electroshock therapy (pictured left).  They administered a variety of exotic pharmaceutical concoctions.  Surgical removal of patients "Scream Centers" (now known as the brains frontal lobe) became commonplace (pictured right).  Application of extreme heat, extreme cold, sleep deprivation, induced comas, dream manipulation, post hypnotic suggestion, and more, were all used with alarming regularity, and most with horrifying results.  At the end of their rope and faced with the dilemma of sending the deeply disturbed out into society, the home finally found the answer they were looking for.  Chapter 5 - Success? In the summer of 1895, staff at Scott Bream Sanitarium (pictured right) began releasing fully rehabilitated, functioning residents into the world with great success.  No one, not even the patients themselves, knew for sure how these results were achieved.  But this success was short lived.  By the fall of that same year, no other sane or living person would ever exit that house again.  Chapter 6 - The Aftermath A few people did manage to escape, but all suffered from an extreme form of dementia.  Most could not speak.  Those that could, repeated only a single phrase over and over.  "Don’t Scream!", "Don’t Scream!", "Don’t Scream!", were the only words ever heard from any of them again.  They were all diagnosed as mad and every one of them, ironically, was committed to the territorial asylum.  Journals and medical charts smuggled out by those poor demented souls, offer some of the most detailed and disturbing testimony of the sanitarium.  Many references speak about the house as a living being, hungry to feed on the screams of the residents.  Some would say it came alive after the doctor found his cure and the patients screams stopped.  Others would say it had always been alive, feeding on the plentiful cries of the doctor’s victims.  One account recorded that in order to harvest screams from its victims, the house created unspeakable horrors for the remaining inhabitants.  Diving into the deepest recesses of their minds, finding their darkest fears, and creating what scared them most.  Feeding on their screams until they had been quite literally, "scared to death".  Investigators sent into the home were never heard from again.  Rumors began to spread and the house was dubbed "Screamatarium".  Chapter 7 - The End? It was said the house eventually consumed every scream from every inhabitant.  Every inhabitant except one.  A single resident was kept "relatively" sane, as a care-taker of sorts.  Dr. Breams original servant had been conditioned for years to follow orders, no matter how mad, and this was just what the house needed.  With the Utah Territory’s petition to be granted statehood almost a reality, local officials did not want risk a public scandal getting in the way.  The government quietly and secretly closed the Scott Bream Sanitarium and tried to erase all record of its existence.  Chapter 8 - Epilogue The years passed and all knowledge of the sanitarium faded into memory.  The Territorial Insane Asylum which had spawned it, went through countless changes and was renamed multiple times, most recently to the Utah State Hospital in 1927.  In 1971, its main building was closed (pictured left) and later, in 1976, demolished (pictured below).  It was this demolition that unearthed sanitarium related records thought long since destroyed.  The few people allowed to review these documents were horrified by what they read.  But possibly the most shocking discovery, was that the building that housed the Scott Bream Sanitarium, still stands today. Some say even now, the house is creating devious plans to bring in new victims, and that the doctor’s servant is carrying out those plans.  Of course, most that hear the tale just dismiss it as a myth or urban legend.  But some say it’s all true.  What is the truth?  Come find out for yourself.  And remember, whatever you do, DON’T SCREAM! - Home - Dark History - Pictures - Press - Email -