Ryan and Shane discover why this Sanatorium is one of the most haunted places in the world.Ryan and Shane discover why this Sanatorium is one of the most haunted places in the world.Ryan and Shane discover why this Sanatorium is one of the most haunted places in the world. No matter the good vibes the site espoused, it still ended up as place to scare people. Another nurse would jump to her death from the same place. If the bacteria did become an infection, there was an 80% chance of death at that time. This weeks podcast Serena shows us ecidence of the various hauntings of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. At some point between Chris and us, behind Chris and in front of us, 2 bright balls of light shot from one room across the hall and into the adjacent room. After all, these are places well-versed in suffering, pain, and death, their walls saturated in it over their usually very grim histories, making them wellsprings of stories of ghosts and the unexplained. The sanatorium was established in the early 20th century to help deal with an outbreak of the then-incurable disease tuberculosis. Waverly Hills had its own fields and livestock, vegetable fields, water treatment facility, and even its own radio station, post office and zip code. 2023 Waverly Hills Historical Society | All Rights Reserved. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. The room in the rooftop chambers is believed to have housed tuberculosis patients with mental illnesses, according to a 2010 Courier Journal article, and was allegedly the site of a nurse's death by suicide. Their only link to those they had left behind were occasional visit days that were strictly controlled, limited, and overseen, so they were basically all on their own. More than half of those diagnosed with TB would die in three to five years. There were no more shadows, no banging, no flashing light. Tuberculosis was becoming an epidemic in Valley Station, Pleasure Ridge Park, and other parts of Jefferson County in Kentucky. It was not known at the time that Tuberculosis was an airborne disease. A Haunting (2005- ) TV-PG | 60 min | Documentary, Horror, Mystery. Vandalized, damaged, nearly condemned. Spookiest Stories Ever: Four Seasons of Kentucky Ghosts, Tuberculosis (also known as TB, consumption, the White Death, or the White Plague) is a highly communicable bacterial infection contracted by breathing in air containing. If you don't believe in ghosts, you will NOW!!! As such, Waverly Hills was largely self-sufficient; they grew their own food and raised animals; they had a post office and a water treatment facility. The administrators began taking the bodies through the hidden tunnel to hide the morbid evidence from the other tenants, earning the tunnel the nickname the body chute. Luckily this misery came to an end in the 1940s when a tuberculosis drug was introduced that drastically lowered the need for such a large facility. How to get tickets to tour Waverly Hills Address: 4400 Paralee Drive, Louisville, KY. 40272 Phone number: 502-690-7880 Website: therealwaverlyhills.com Tour prices: Two-hour paranormal tour,. This company operated the nursing home facility until 1982 when it was closed by the state for violations and the mistreatment of patients. A reminder to visitors that Waverly Hills is private property and the residence of it's owners. NASA's Photos From Mars: Don't Tell Me the Red Planet Wasn't Once a Thriving World! Something for everyone interested in hair, makeup, style, and body positivity. In 1944, Streptomycin would be developed. The leading independent voice for aviation news and insight. ome improvement began to present itself in those who spent a restful retreat in the mountains. Nestled on the top of a placid hill, the old Waverly Hills Sanatorium once tried to heal tuberculosis with peace and good vibes. He started a one-room schoolhouse on Pages Lane and hired Lizzie Lee Harris as the teacher. From 1962 to 1981, the building served as a medical facility for geriatric patients: the Woodhaven Geriatrics Center. A childrens pavilion was built in 1916 that housed 40 children and included a schoolroom. Poad nen dostupn v zemi. The roof of Waverly Hills is also said to be rather intensely haunted, and one dramatic encounter was related on the site True Ghost Tales, by a witness who says: My friends and I went out on the roof and just hung out thinking about the stories we heard about the place when we began to see figures moving around in the dark inside the area of the 5th floor where the patients were bedded outside for air. Charlie and Tina Mattingly, the current owners of Waverly Hills, plan to turn the facility into a four-star hotel catering to history buffs and those intrigued by the supernatural. The second e was dropped at some point.). It could accommodate at least 400 + patients and be considered one of the most modern and well-equipped facilities at the time. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. The first antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis was called streptomycin, and it was discovered by American biologists in 1943. Room 502 is said to be so imbued with negative energy and a sense of overwhelming despondency and sadness that it is impossible to stay in there for very long, and is one of the most haunted places in the whole facility. "), Meet Wayne Hettinger:How did ignorance help create Thunder Over Louisville? Construction on the second hospital was underway in March 1924. They had noticed that some improvement began to present itself in those who spent a restful retreat in the mountains. But theres Waverly Hills as well. Even taking into account the extra 19 years that the geriatric hospital was in operation, more than 2 people would have had to die on-premises on average every day for 70 years. One of these, Room 502, is the subject of many rumors and legends and just about every curiosity-seeker that had broken into Waverly Hills over the years wanted to see it. Like those who are known to be pet lovers viciously harming cats. Construction on this building began in 1908 and opened for business on July 26, 1910. Sanatoriums were built on high hills surrounded by peaceful woods to create a serene atmosphere to help the patients recover. The sanatorium was featured on ABC/FOX Family Channel's Scariest Places On Earth, VH1's Celebrity Paranormal Project, Syfy's Ghost Hunters, Zone Reality's Creepy, the British show Most Haunted, Paranormal Challenge and Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel. !0:00 Intro1:02 Sanitarium Origins3:38 The Body Tunnels5:21 Tunnel EVP9: 36 Timmy10: 29 Timmy EVP11:04 Timmy Playing With Ball13:55 Homeless Man and His Dog15:46 Shadow People16:28 Window Faces16:55 Ralph17:55 Ralph EVP20:23 Infected Nurse21:02 Mary Hillenburge25:38 EndingTunnel EVP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CET6KiVaXXsTimmy EVP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXxHlVKMIHETimmy Playing With Ball: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ur8nzRalph EVP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySAkTxGZtgs\u0026t=19s All of this activity has ensured that Waverly Hills Sanatorium has become a mecca for ghost hunters, and it has appeared on a veritable who's who of paranormal TV programs, such as Scariest Places on Earth, VH1's Celebrity Paranormal Project, SyFy's Ghost Hunters, Zone Reality's Creepy, the British show Most Haunted, Paranormal Challenge, Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel, and Ghost Asylum and Paranormal Lockdown, both on Destination America. The Winchesters is currently airing on Tuesdays on The CW! Waverly Hills Sanatorium once housed hundreds, perhaps thousands of tuberculosis patients during a major, years-long outbreak in Jefferson County, Kentucky the building that still stands. With a design from local renowned architect D. X. Murphy, the new building now had a capacity of 400 and opened on October 17, 1926. Some worry the transformation will . It opened in 1910 as a two-story hospital to accommodate 40 to 50 tuberculosis patients. The infamous 600-foot body chute, for instance, that was used to discretely move thousands of corpses through the facility has grown in infamy and is often cited as a place where ghostly experiences take place. (Louisville, Kentucky) Producing my first documentary at THE Waverly Hills Sanatorium!Don't miss what we're up to next, HIT SUBSCRIBE to keep up! It also shows a special department where the (presumably uninfected) children of adult sanatorium patients lived and were taken care of. Its usually in a hospital that the angel of death is most active. Regardless, such stories strike a mysterious chord in our souls thats hard to dismiss. She decided to help them create their bomb. Its said that the state shut it down due to reports of improper care and physical abuse of the elderly patients there. Over the next few decades, Waverly Hills would fall into more dark times. A visit to Waverly Hills is a journey to the strange world of ghosts and ghostly experiences. Since Louisville was experiencing a surge in cases that swamped its other facilities, Waverly Hills was constructed to pick up the slack, and in its day it was considered a true marvel. It got to the point where death was so commonplace that bodies were sometimes carried out right in front of other patients, although mostly they tried to do this through a secret tunnel and away from witnesses. He hired a woman named Lizzie Lee Harris to teach at the school. It is listed on the National Historic Register and faced the threat of being torn down. By: Maggie Miller Related To: Haunted In the early 1900s, Kentucky's hospitals were at a breaking point. A tunnel connecting to the base of the hill was also built so that workers and supplies could be ferried to the facility at the top of the hill. The Waverly Hills Sanatorium | Louisville KY Jeff is a writer, an author, a health and fitness nerd, and, perhaps most importantly, a traveler. Tuberculosis was often deadly and extremely contagious, so patients were usually kept quarantined in secluded spaces. For Courier Journal subscribers:What issues must Louisville's next mayor try to fix? Then in 1882, a German physician called Robert Koch announced to an expectant world the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis. Since then, theyve worked with the Waverly Hills preservation society to restore the building. This was a nurses station where a nurse allegedly harmed herself after discovering she was pregnant. It had its own post office, water treatment facility, grew its own fruits and vegetables, raised its own meat for slaughter, and maintained many of the other necessities of everyday life. Patients in every condition were accepted including those in early stages to those in the final stages. A Q&A with the man behind the show. Rate. Here's what residents told us. And the United States abounds with such paranormal tales. These paranormal events include shadowy presences, cold spots, and others of a similar nature. 2023 Atlas Obscura. 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The hospital became a self-sufficient city with its own zip code, providing those who lived there all the necessities of day-to-day life. The Waverly Hills Historical Society runs tours by reservation only each year, March through August. The patients were isolated on either side of the nurses stations and they had to go to a half door at each station to get their food and medicine and to use the restroom, which was located adjacent to the station.#waverlyhills #haunted #ghosts Waverly Hills Sanatorium opened its doors on July 26, 1910 and housed thousands of patients suffering from tuberculosis. In crowded cities in the 19th century, anywhere from 70 to 90% of the population may have been infected with the bacteria, which could lie dormant for any amount of time. Even so, the CDC reported 9,557 cases in the United States in 2015. 7.9. Previous property owners had no desire to maintain the luster of the building and did little to stop people from slowly destroying her. . All rights reserved. I wanted to shut my eyes but I had to see where I was going. The little TB clinic was filled with more than 140 people, and it was obvious that a much larger hospital was needed to treat those afflicted with the condition. A Q&A with the man behind the show, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Related: Here's What We Know About The Future Of Waverly Hills Sanatarium. The first Waverly Hills Sanatorium building opened on July 26, 1910. An abandoned tuberculosis hospital moulders on into an uncertain future. 1977. The Waverly Hills Historical Society continue to work tirelessly and devote their lives to restoring the historic gem that is Waverly Hills to its once amazing splendor! (Please get in the death tunnel.). Troy Taylor from the American Ghost Society claims, on his website, that he saw the man in the white coat disappear into a treatment room on the 4th floor during his first trip to WHS, shortly after the Mattinglys purchased the property. Opened in 1910 on land that once held a schoolhouse, the sanatorium was designed to deal with the rising epidemic of tuberculosis that was plaguing the region at the time. The vast facility was then considered variously as the location of a prison, a hotel, and a conference center, changing hands several times, but mostly it just became a derelict, abandoned place that would go on to draw plenty of spooky tales, finally coming into possession of its current owners in 2001, historical and paranormal enthusiasts Charles and Tina Mattingly, who have made great efforts to try and restore it and fund the restoration through annual haunted house events. We calmed him a little and it was as if someone just shut it all off like a light switch. Charlie claims John told him he was one of the people who found the nurse and confirmed that there had been a lot of blood and a baby -- and that because it was so taboo at the time, the death wouldnt have been recorded. To answer the many that have messaged asking,. Some have reported seeing shapes near the window in room 502 and even a voice saying, Get out.. People believed that fresh air and sunlight would help alleviate the symptoms of Tuberculosis. The BCG vaccine was first successfully used to ward off tuberculosis in 1921 in France, but the use of vaccines tended to travel slowly in those days. Waverly Hills Sanatorium was an abandoned sanatorium Sam and Dean visited in order to collect the many ghosts haunting there. As no reason has been given for why she would have committed suicide, rumor is, she was actually pushed. This kept them far away from the rest of the patients in the hospital but still in an area where they could benefit from the fresh air and sunshine. Aer. In 2014, the most recent year for which the CDC reports a mortality figure, 493 people died of TB. When you're around it and you actually see this stuff, and people can't explain it - I mean, there's some things we can explain but many we can't - you start to wonder, is there something about a spirit that stays around? The 180,000 square-foot facility provided treatment for over four hundred patients, each having access to their own telephone, radio, and solarium porch space. In 1962, the building reopened as a nursing home that eventually became known as Woodhaven Medical Services, a geriatric facility. The Midwestern United States' tribute to Michelangelo is a foam statue sprayed with gaudy gold paint. To this effect the original facility consisted of two open-air pavilions which housed 40 victims of the disease. The tubercle bacillus that causes tuberculosis was identified in an Egyptian mummy that dated back to 3000 BCE. "Room 502" is also notorious. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. We couldn't run due to the darkness and the mess the place was in so we held tight on our arms and entered the hall area. There is also the infamous Room 502, which is haunted by a nurse who once worked here and hung herself in the room after falling into crippling depression from her job, as well as another nurse who also killed herself here by jumping from the window. In the 19th century, Pulmonary Tuberculosis, then known as consumption, killed as many as one in seven people in the US. Ghost stories:Here are 300+ haunted places to explore in Kentucky and Indiana. To list it all here would be redundant as the spectral troupe at Waverly is arguably the most well-known in America. Because Tuberculosis was so extremely contagious and at epidemic proportions, those living with it could not be allowed to live and exist among the general population. From Alabama to Wyoming, there are abandoned towns, amusement parks, and ruins lurking in your home state. Categories Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. The childrens pavilion is also well-known for being haunted by the spirit of a little boy called Timmy, who will sometimes allegedly play with balls left out for him. Waverly Hills Sanatoriumis a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, used in the 20th century for people with tuberculosis. The most common treatment was simply bed rest in the, One fairly horrific procedure used on TB patients before medication was available was called. Over the years many expansions were built, including a hospital for advanced cases and a childrens pavilion, vast open-air areas, and there was a new building built practically every year. They could come up with no logical explanation for what had occurred.Ghost researchers are always drawn to the fifth floor of the former hospital. He's written articles for MU and Daily Grail and has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM and Binnal of America. The site boasts a myriad of ghosts and paranormal phenomena. For those who have the nerve. Or is it just the imaginings of those in a decidedly spooky locale, keyed up to see something strange to the point that their minds conjure up visions of ghosts? This grim, bat-winged building is the archetype of the haunted hospital or insane asylum. Since the new home was far away from any existing schools, Mr. Hays decided to open a local school for his daughters to attend. Waverly Hills Sanatorium sits on land that was originally purchased by Major Thomas H. Hays in 1883. It should be no surprise considering the history of death pervading this place, and the list of paranormal activity here is long. Thats the reason ghost tours, even though scary, are nonetheless popular. Her love for the tiny school, in addition to her fondness for Scotts Waverley Novels, prompted her to name the little schoolhouse, Waverley School. Major Hays liked the name, and chose to name his property Waverley Hill. 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