Current location:	Los Angeles County
Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Gogol Bordello - Wunderlust King
Entry tags:	abandoned places, hospital, midwest us, photography

Abandoned Places - Bluegrass Wanderings –July 07
Waverly Hills Sanitarium (Part 2)

First off, I want to welcome the folks in the waverlyhills community who’ve come over and joined this community as well.

I’d also like to comment on the 63,000 death figure. Originally I was skeptical of this number too. My research led me to think this was the number of deaths in the entire state of Kentucky during the era. I then discovered that Waverly Hills was the regional TB hospital for the entire state and was where all the serious cases (requiring isolation) were sent. Because it was the primary state hospital, the figure may have come from this article (http://whsmemorial.tripod.com/id30.html). In reading through the Waverly website and the memorial website (now linked below), the staff and former patients note in correspondence that at the height of the outbreak, 12 to 14 deaths each day were not uncommon. The historical information notes that at the bottom of the “Death Tunnel” notes that hearsts were parked and awaiting “constant stream of” bodies 24/7 for a number of years. In lieu of that, the journals of former medical staff and patients indicate there was quite a number of daily fatalities.

As I noted in the first post Waverly is haunted. Not just mildly haunted, but it reeks of the spiritual detritus of tens of thousands of live that touched this place. When we first entered the grounds my daughter and I commented to each other that we were being watched. When we entered the place on the tour, the place has a very ‘close’ feeling to it, it’s like you’re jostling to get through crowds of the unseen. On several occasions there even seemed to be mild interaction between we the living and the spirits retained there.


In these dark halls, the past lingers





The tour led us to the upper most floor of the hospital, the 5th floor solarium and nurse’s station. The owners were in the process of resealing the roof.




The roof is split in two sections; one side was for children to play on sun themselves. The sound of children’s voices at play has frequently been heard coming from this area. On the other side of the nurse’s station (Rm 502), was there the insane (TB of the brain) patients would be taken to sun themselves. There’s said to be several oppressive presences feel there. Due to construction, we weren’t allowed on the open air sections


I mentioned Room 502. In 1928, the charge nurse covering this area was found hung by her neck from a pipe. One story is she was distraught over the isolation of the hospital. She wasn’t found for at least several hours and was hanging in full view of the dementia affected patients.


Perhaps it was this pipe?..

While in the 5th floor area, I lined up with my D-SLR to shoot several times, and kept getting error messages. “No Lens” WTF?! Two or three times, the lens for my camera was de-latched and turned just far enough it wouldn’t shoot but also would fall off. Each time I would reseat it and make sure it was latched only to have it happen all over again several minutes later.




Just to give you a hint at the active nature of the haunting, here’s another story. While heading down to the third floor from the fifth, the guide stopped us by a fire door. They told us that several years before, the guards found three teenage boys cowering just outside one of stairway accesses (in a hallway). They knew he boys were there because of the blood chilling screams. When the guards got there, the boys asked the guard to please take them out. When asked why they didn’t simply leave through the fire door, the boys said the people in the staircase wouldn’t let them go. They even took an axe to the metal door trying to get it to budge. The fire door had/has no lock or latch on it..


On one floor, a hobo and his dog are said to wander about. After the facilities closed in the 1980’s, they fell down the central elevator shaft.


Yes, this photo is blurry. It’s a hand held, long exposure of the 3rd floor hallway. One of the most notable “features” of Waverly’s haunting is the “Shadow People” who wander the halls. As darkness was settling around us, the guide asked us to turn off lights and camera flashes to let everyone’s eyes acclimate to the gathering gloom. Without focusing on any particular place, we could start to make out movement in and out of the doorways and down the halls. There was no breeze to stir the trees outside the building and no lights outside to cause the shadows movement. The prove this, several volunteers, including my daughter persephone1313 were asked to move slowly up the hall, arms spread, to a point 40 ft (14m) away. We could clearly see shadows passing them, moving around them and in my daughter’s case, escorting her up the hallway towards us.

Then there’s the kids how are said to wander the halls. Check out this link and see for yourself (http://www.themaxfm.com/Article.asp?id=299214)


The Death Tunnel – The tunnel was originally a service tunnel used to bring supplies up from the railroad line below the hill that the former hospital rests on. Unfortunately as larger and larger numbers of the patient population died off, the administrators here elected to start sending the bodies of the deceased down the service tunnel to waiting vehicles and RR cars. This kept the dead from view of patients still fighting the disease.


On the floor of the 485 ft (120m) tunnel was a gradual stairway and on the right was an electric beltway tram. Bodies or supplies could be placed on trays and sent either direction.


Here’s a view of a base for the tram rollers


False color (light adjusted) detail


Above were stanchions for lights, power conduits, and telephone lines. At one time there may have been an overhead troll as well based on the structural and mechanical set-up.


Out at the end of the tunnel, nature is taking over.


A lone owl watched us curiously from the tree in the distance. Coming back up the tunnel (dead last in the group) was the only time I personally felt uncomfortable. At several points, I literally felt that someone was walking close no one was visible.


I’ll close out this adventure with this night shot of the 5th floor tower. It’s a hand steadied, long exposure which caught the interesting blur – as least so I would like to think.


As few links:
Waverly Hills Website

Wiki Article with links

Prarie Ghosts article

Waverly Hills Memorial Website


At the conclusion of the tour, the guides mentioned something surprising. As the site is fully restored, the building is going to be used as a haunted resort of sorts. They wouldn’t be specific about the plans, but the comment was about trying to get patient rooms redone for guest stays. Given the level of clean up, repair and restoration, I would expect power and limited water will be restored to the entire building sometime next year. My guess is they are still trying to figure out air conditioning and getting the elevator working. If you’re going to visit, I would highly recommend doing so in the next year or so to get the feel for this place as an “abandoned hospital.”