Perched on a hill in Louisville, KY, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium is known for its history of illness, death, and of course, ghosts. The old hospital has appeared on nearly every ghost-hunting show in the nation, and many insist Waverly is “the most haunted place in the United States.” Here’s why.
The History of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium
The Waverly Hills Sanatorium was a tuberculosis hospital in Louisville, KY. It originally opened in 1910 with a capacity of 40-50 patients, but underwent massive renovations in 1926 and could eventually accommodate up to 400 people. Waverly Hills remained open until 1961 until a new drug rendered the hospital obsolete. It reopened as a geriatric facility, but closed again in the early 1980s after the state found evidence of patient neglect.
The current owners of Waverly Hills now run tours through the property and organize a haunted house event each Halloween. Many people insist the old hospital is “the most haunted place in the United States,” and the facility has been featured on Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters (including a live Halloween special), Ghost Hunters Academy, Most Haunted, Paranormal Challenge, Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, Scariest Places on Earth, among others.
TB treatments at the time of Waverly were primitive, experimental, and painful. Medical staff would often place sandbags on patients’ chests in an attempt to compress the lungs. They also tried electroshock therapy and experimental surgeries. Because of this, a stay at Waverly Hills was often an agonizing experience. Though death estimates vary widely, at least 6,000 people died at the hospital during its 50+ years in operation.
The Death Tunnel
An underground tunnel leads from the hospital’s main entrance to the bottom of a steep hill some 500 feet (or 150 meters) down. Whenever a patient died, doctors sent the body down the tunnel via a motorized cable system to a hearse waiting below. Thousands of patients left Waverly Hills in this way, though some claim the deceased never truly left.
Eerie events in the old tunnel include mysterious shadows, footsteps when no one’s around, and the creak and groan of the long-gone cables.
Room 502
Legend has it a pregnant nurse committed suicide by hanging herself in Room 502. Some say she had TB, others say she was unmarried and pregnant by the hospital’s owner. Another nurse allegedly leapt from the room for unknown reasons. Now the mystery nurse (or nurses) allegedly haunts the room to this day.
The Haunting of Waverly Hills
Of course, the paranormal activity isn’t restricted to the death tunnel or Room 502. Other freaky events include screams echoing in the halls, shadow people flitting just out of sight, muffled conversations, flickering lights, and heavy footsteps when no one is around. A little boy named Timmy also allegedly haunts the hospital, rolling balls towards investigators. More than a few videos on YouTube show a child’s ball moving by itself.
Have you had an experience at the haunted Waverly Hills? Tell me about it!
Sources: The Real Waverly Hills, Wikipedia
Photos: Trip Advisor
I think it’s sick and depraved that people actually host live shows and Halloween ‘ghost hunts’ there. For Christ sake this place was a concentration camp where innocent people with disease were tortured and experimented on till they DIED. How can anyone dare profit from such a thing? There’s a special place in Hell for those kinds of people.
Well, you could say that about many places the ghost shows visit. I feel weird about the Lizzy Borden house.
If it’s for research and proper respect is paid to the location I say ok. But hosting those shows are as disrespectful as doing a paid event in a Concentration camp.
No should be making money off of that. No one.
This is why I find hard to believe in ghost when evvery hotel, B&b House etc all in the end make money out of the possiblity that its hauted., when the truth is, its probably just your mind doing over time. I worked at an old insane asylum convert to nursey for many years and some parts have also been turned into flats now. And I can tell you now naff all ever happends nore do we see anything. I believe its dont believe any of these so called ghost stories.
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As many ghosts may live there, I’d say the scariest haunted place in America is the Lalaurie House in New Orleans. I’ve never been inside, and I don’t want to. The lady of this house owned many slaves. During a horrific fire, firemen went to the upper floor of the kitchen. After opening the door, these brave, hardened men had to retch for give minutes before entering upon smelling the stench within. Here, the lady had committed horrible experiments. There were corpses and victims clinging to life: failed brain surgeries, sewing of slaves together, and one slave that looked a caterpillar, due to every bone in its body having been removed.
Madame Lalaurie was chased from New Orleans by furious locales, and was never heard of again. Much later, her kitchen floor was dug up and thousands of human bones were discovered. To this day, it is owned by celebrities… but none dare to live in it.
Jose Prado says:
March 26, 2013 at 6:29 pm
I think it’s sick and depraved that people actually host live shows and Halloween ‘ghost hunts’ there. For Christ sake this place was a concentration camp where innocent people with disease were tortured and experimented on till they DIED. How can anyone dare profit from such a thing? There’s a special place in Hell for those kinds of people.
Jose Prado, Many agree with you. The owners of the Waverly Hills Tina Mattings makes a small fortune on Halloween walk threws. However, let us also keep in mind, they in turn use this money to refurbish this place for the future.
Paranormal Patriarch; Shadow Eyes__set the wheels in motion in 1950s for Parapsychology Science research,
that of which, all started with this child’s weeks stay, when the Creeper (manifested) inside the Wood Haven Geriatric Center on the 4th floor.
http://ghostsstory.com/EasyBlog/the-paranormal-patriarch-shadow-eyes.html