In the 1900s, Jefferson County, Kentucky was hit by an epidemic of tuberculosis (TB), the White Plague. TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is usually contracted when someone breathes in the bacterium from another person. It stops the reproduction of red blood cells, thus eventually suffocating a person to death.
The five-story Waverly Hills Sanatorium was completed in 1926 in Louisville, Kentucky to contain over 400 patients at a time. Some like to say that 63,000 people died in that hospital over the years, but there are no records to back up this claim. The worst year for death was in 1945, when townspeople returning from fighting in World War II came back with advanced cases of TB. 152 deaths are found in the autobiography of Assistant Medical Director Dr. J. Frank W. Stewart, a doctor at Waverly Hills at the time. The 500-foot Underground Tunnel that led from the bottom of the hill to the hospital was used for supplies and steps were added for
personnel, but after a while, the motorized rail cable system was used to send bodies down to waiting hearses. This tunnel became known as both the Body Chute and the Death Tunnel.
The hospital closed in 1961, and the next year reopened as Woodhaven Geriatrics Hospital. This nursing home closed down in 1982 due to patient abuse, so it is untelling how many senior citizens met their end in the old hospital.
After it closed, the old Sanatorium began notoriety for being the “creepy old place on top of the hill;” people would say it was haunted. Legends about the ghosts in Waverly Hills began to form.
- Room 502: Legends about two suicides accompany this room. The first is a nurse who allegedly both pregnant by one of the married doctors in the hospital. In one story she gives herself an abortion and hangs herself, but in another story, the doctor botches the abortion and hangs her, making it look like a suicide. In either event, even though there is no evidence of such a suicide, many hospital personnel remember it well and set the date in 1928. The other suicide that took place in this room on the fifth floor allegedly took place four years later, when a nurse jumped off of the roof. There is no evidence of this happening, either, nor do any hospital personnel remember the event, but perhaps someone remembered a nurse had committed suicide there and put together a tragic story to tell to scare their friends?
- Timmy: Paranormal investigators and enthusiasts alike have reported seeing a small boy bouncing an old, leather ball. Visitors have named him Timmy and he is mainly encountered on the third floor.
- Mary Lee: After the Sanatorium closed for good, a self-acclaimed psychic went into the hospital and found a picture of a young woman, signed, “Love, Mary Lee.” The legend of a ghost girl who has no eyes that haunts the hospital was somehow connected to this name, though witnesses confess the girl they have seen is younger that the one in the picture; she has been spotted mostly on the third floor and in the basement.
- The Elevator: A somewhat cliché rumor began to spread that a homeless man and his dog were found dead in the old elevator in the 1990s, and apparently the two are still together in the afterlife, haunting the place.
- The Crazy Lady: Another local legend is that if you weren’t brave enough to enter the Sanatorium when it was abandoned, you might just see a bleeding lady in a straightjacket come running out of the front doors.
- The Swing Set: On the roof of the hospital, there used to be a swing set for children to play on. Visitors have reported both hearing and seeing children still up there, even though the swing set is long gone.
- The Hitchhiker: One local legend is that you may be near the front entrance to the hospital, near the golf course, and meet a boy with brown hair. He will ask you for a ride, but when you get away from the hospital, he will have vanished from your back seat.
- Shadow People: This term was widely popularized in the 2005 movie White Noise with Michael Keaton, and describes disembodied shadows. Visitors often see them, though skeptics believe it is just a trick of an overactive imagination in a spooky place.
- Imps: Many people who’ve taken pictures at Waverly Hills have seen small creatures in their pictures. They’ve been called everything from imps, to gremlins to goblins. Skeptics say that this is just our mind’s pattern-seeking behavior that allows people to make such connections.
In 1996, Robert Alberhasky of Christ the Redeemer Foundation Incorporated bought the land and was planning on turning the old hospital into a chapel and constructing the worlds tallest Jesus statue. Donations fell short though, so he tried to recuperate his money by filing to have the place condemned so that it could be tore down and reconstructed; the County thankfully denied the request. The, this righteous man decided to bulldoze around the southern side of the building so that it would be structurally unsound and he could get some insurance money; this attempt failed, too. Finally, he sold it to Tina and Charlie Mattingly in 2001. The couple changes a fee for tours and investigations of the Sanatorium, most of the proceeds going to remodeling the hospital.
In 2006, Spooked Productions released a documentary on both the History of Waverly Hills and its ghosts, called Spooked The Ghosts Of Waverly Hills Sanatorium after Philip Adrian Booth shot his B horror movie Death Tunnel in the old hospital.
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