The Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Just a report I wrote on this spooky, historical place!

The Waverley Hills Sanatorium is a former tuberculosis (TB) hospital, found in the Waverley Hills neighborhood at 4400 Paralee Drive, Louisville, Kentucky, 40272. Also, it is the fourth most haunted place in America.

                History

Originally, the land that Waverly Hills is on was purchased in 1883 by Thomas H. Hays. On that land, he built a building to act as a school for his daughter. Lizzie Lee Harris, a teacher at the school, called the building “Waverley School” and Thomas liked it so much that he made that the official name. When the property was purchased by the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital, they liked the name Waverley, so they kept it and the hospital was named Waverley Hills Sanatorium. Eventually, the spelling was changed from Waverley to Waverly.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s,  Jefferson County, in Kentucky, had a major tuberculosis outbreak, also known as, the “White Plague”, “White Death” or “Consumption”. Due to the swamplands in the area, it was a perfect habitat for the bacteria causing the disease. In the year 1900, Louisville, Kentucky, had the highest death rate for tuberculosis in the United States. That encouraged the construction of a new hospital on an isolated hill in Southern Jefferson County. The Waverley Hills Sanatorium opened in 1910, with two stories able to house between 40 and 50 patients diagnosed with tuberculosis.  In early 1911, Louisville made plans to build a new Louisville City Hospital. The hospital commissioners stated, in their plans that the new hospital would not treat pulmonary tuberculosis. The Board Of Tuberculosis Hospital was given $25,000 to establish a hospital for the treatment of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis cases. Due to the fact that the wooden structure required repairs constantly and the lack of space, they constructed a five-story building. 

By March 1924 the sanatorium could house over 400 patients. On October 17, 1926, the new building opened, being considered the most advanced tuberculosis sanatorium in the country. Yet, even then most patients died from the disease given that there was no medicine or cure at the time. However, because going to the sanatorium was practically a death sentence, Waverly Hills had its own farms, cattle, zip code, post office, housing for staff and other citizens, and schools. They offered rest, lots of nutritious food, and fresh air, but that didn’t do much. The main use of the hospital was to seclude the patients from the people who didn't have the disease. The sanatorium was much like a prison, with adults and children being separated from their families and little to no contact for the remainder of their lives. 

Treatments for tuberculosis were cruel, painful, and most times, as bad as the disease itself. Since there was no cure at the time, the patients were practically experimental subjects. One of the treatments was exposing the patient's lungs to ultraviolet light to stop the bacteria from spreading. This was done inside of “sunrooms” with artificial light in place of sunlight. The patients also got placed in front of large windows and on the sanatorium’s porches, no matter the season because fresh air was thought to be a cure. Photographs taken in the hospital show patients sitting in chairs, breathing in the fresh air while covered in snow. Other treatments were much more gruesome, with dreadful results. They would surgically implant inflated balloons into the patient's lungs, which almost always ended badly. Another almost constantly fatal operation, which was considered a “last resort”, was one where they would remove the muscles and ribs with hopes to help the lungs expand further, and have a larger oxygen intake. Only 194 people per every 100,000 people survived tuberculosis in the 1900s, meaning very few walked out of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium after entering, even the doctors and nurses.

Now, you might be wondering, how did the sanatorium dispose of the bodies of patients who had succumbed to the disease. Well, they were thrown down what is called, the “body chute”. The “body chute” is a six hundred-foot tunnel that leads from the hospital to the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill, where they were then secretly lowered to the waiting trains in the dead of night. The reason for the secrecy when disposing of the deceased, former patients, was to preserve the mental health of the patients by making sure they didn't see how many bodies left the hospital. Somewhere from 6,000 to 68,000 people died in the Waverly Hills sanatorium from 1910 to 1961. In the late 1930s, the number of tuberculosis cases slightly decreased, but during World War II there was a small increase in cases. A lot of the soldiers who had been coming home from the war were placed in the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Nearly all of the soldier's cases were so severe that they died within a week of arriving.  After the antibiotic drug, streptomycin came out in 1943, the number of tuberculosis patients went down, which meant such a large hospital was not needed. The remaining tuberculosis patients were sent to Hazelwood Sanatorium in Louisville. Waverley Hills later closed in June of 1961. 

It was re-opened a year later as Woodhaven Geriatrics Center, but there were rumors of patient abuse and dangerous experimental practices which led to it being closed for a final time in 1982, becoming abandoned. There were many potential plans for the sanatorium such as a minimum-security prison, apartments, and even a hotel, but none of those ideas ever got put into action. In 2001, Charlie and Tina Mattingly purchased the sanatorium. Two years later they founded the Waverly Hills Historical Society. The Waverley Hills Sanitorium is now a famous tourist attraction. You can book historic tours, paranormal tours, public investigations, and private investigations with up to 10 people.

      Legends, Stories, And Hauntings

Though it was a sanatorium, tuberculosis wasn’t the only thing causing death in the hospital. The number of deaths caused by something other than tuberculosis was very minimal, compared to how many deaths actually occurred there. Only around four deaths occurred from other misfortunes. Those deaths were caused by suicide, murder, and fatal accidents. There are many stories of what spirits haunt the old sanatorium, making it a very popular place for tourists who don't mind a scare or two. The most haunted floor in Waverly Hills is the fifth floor, also the top floor. When people go to the roof of the building they often get a slight urge to jump, due to the influence of the traumatic deaths of certain spirits. One of the most famously haunted rooms is room 502, which is on the fifth floor. In this room, two nurses committed suicide. In 1928, 29-year-old Mary Hillenburg, who was unmarried hung herself from the ceiling light in that room. There are multiple rumors circulating Mary’s death. Some say a doctor in the hospital failed her abortion and proceeded to stage her death as suicide. Another rumor is that she got pregnant with a doctor and hung herself because of it. Nobody knows how long her body was hanging there before it was discovered. Then, in 1932, a nurse fell to her death out of the window in room 502. Some suspect she was pushed, others say she jumped, but that still remains a mystery. Visitors at Waverly Hills claim that they have experiences with negative feelings, disembodied voices, and sightings of spectral images in the windows and full-body apparitions of a female nurse in white. Another one of the most haunted rooms in the Waverley Hills Sanatorium, Is the Electroshock Therapy room. In that room, many people died, as electroshock therapy, was thought to help cure tuberculosis, even though it usually killed people faster. Many paranormal investigators find this as one of the more active areas of the sanatorium, because of the numerous amount of deaths that took place in that room. Visitors of the sanatorium claim to feel cold spots, see apparitions of former tuberculosis patients, and hear unexplained voices and noises in that room. Then, there’s the Body Chute. The bodies of everyone who had died there were thrown into the body chute to be disposed of late at night. Some people see balls of light and orbs in the chute. 

There are many spirits roaming the grounds of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, but there are some that are more well-known than others. Those such as the spirit of a ten-year-old boy named Timmy. Timmy was, like many children at the sanatorium, healthy, and not infected by the disease. He, again, like many other children at the sanatorium, stayed there because his parents had tuberculosis and he had no other family. His parents had been diagnosed with stage 3 tuberculosis and were practically destined for death. All of the healthy children lived away from the sick patients in order to keep them safe from the disease. There was a playground built on the roof of the sanatorium for the children to play and run around. Of course, you’d think they would take some precautions to keep a group of young children safe on the roof of a five-story building, but they didn’t. Timmy had connected with one of the nurses, Mary Hilguart. At 2 pm every day, Mary would talk to him and play catch with him for hours. Timmy had loved pranking Mary.  She was quite fond of Timmy, and they were good friends, which you’d need in a place like that. They had a pretty special connection. Timmy had a few things he was especially fond of. Those were his music box that was shaped like a treasure chest, and a ball. Of course, being an average ten-year-old, when Mary had told him not to over-wind his music box, he didn’t listen, and eventually, it broke. Even then he carried it around in his pocket every day because his parents had gifted it to him. Then, one summer, on a Tuesday afternoon, while Mary was taking care of another child, Timmy was chasing his ball on the roof, and he fell five stories to the ground, dying instantly.

                      

An investigation was stationed at the sanatorium. At the time Timmy fell, there was a patient, who was also a prisoner standing next to him. Most thought at that point, that Timmy was pushed, but there was not enough proof to support that.

Mary was distraught and asked Timmy’s parents if she could keep his music box to remind her of the time they had together. They agreed and she then displayed the box on her living room shelf to remind her of him every time she walked passed it. Though Mary and Timmy had such a strong bond, time took over and a few years after Timmy’s passing her memory of his began to fade away, being replaced by the hundreds of other children she had helped science his death. One day though, Mary was cleaning and she heard the familiar sound of the music box, and it was playing in her living room. That made all of their memories flood back into her mind, clear as day, bringing tears to her eyes, remembering the times she had spent with Timmy. The music box had stopped quickly though, bringing her room to silence, once again, and when she checked the clock, the time had read 2 pm. Which, was when she and Timmy would go and play ball. She then grabbed the music box to look inside but found nothing. She laughed to herself and thanked Timmy for giving her all of those memories to look back on and for remembering her after all that time. An interesting story indeed. Now, Timmy’s spirit is known for playing ball with the visitors. If you roll a ball down the hallway, Timmy might just roll it back.

Though, not all spirits on the property are as friendly as Timmy. There’s an entity seen in the Waverly Hills Sanatorium called, “The Creeper”. Many shadow figures are seen in the building and on the grounds, but “The Creeper” is much different from other shadow figures and spirits to walk the premises of Waverly Hills. Of course, there is a slight possibility that “The Creeper” is a human spirit who did some inhumane thing in their lifetime and looks inhuman in the afterlife, but the entity they call “The Creeper” is said to be something more demonic, something that never walked this earth as a living organism. Most human spirits act somewhat like they did in their lifetime, which suggests that the creeper is a much more malevolent entity. It brings a feeling of doom to whoever spots it roaming Waverly Hills. ”The Creeper” is said to be a large shadow creature that climbs the ceilings and walls on the fourth floor. It is said to have unnaturally long, curving legs and arms. Though, again, there is a small possibility that “The Creeper” is a human spirit, demonic entities are usually attracted to places with many human spirits, such as the Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

There are also legends and stories of doppelgangers walking the grounds of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. They’re said to take the form of people you know. They even mimic the voices of people you know. They are very deceptive and bring very bad energy, malevolent even.

There is also an extremely sad story of a man and his dog who were murdered in the building. The story is of a homeless man who was staying at the sanatorium with his dog while it was abandoned. When he was caught the caretakers asked him to leave but they ended up making a deal. The man was allowed to stay for the winter weather if he would keep teenagers from breaking into the place and vandalizing it. The caretakers even checked in on him from time to time and brought him a hot meal. One night, tragedy struck. Three young men snuck into the sanatorium while the man and his dog were sleeping and beat him and his dog to death with a hammer. The three guys then threw the man and his dog down the third-floor elevator shaft. When the owners came to the sanatorium and couldn't find the man and his dog they had just assumed he left the building and thought nothing of it. A few weeks later, they were checking up on the place and started smelling something foul, so they searched the building up and down. They eventually came across the elevator shaft, and when they shined their flashlight down, they saw it. The man and his dog's dead bodies lying there, decaying. When the police investigated, it was said that they found out that the murder was committed by three young men who claimed to be Satanists. A sad day for the Waverly Hills Sanatorium indeed. Now, for safety reasons, the doors to the elevator are shut, but there have been sightings of apparitions that look like a man and his dog, roaming the third floor.

There are many more spirits who stay at the sanatorium whose names and stories are unknown, but given the sanatoriums past, they were probably former patients. Overall, reports of paranormal activity in the building include seeing shadow people, doppelgangers, orbs and lights, apparitions, and even witnessing things move and doors slam. People often hear thuds, knocks, unexplainable noises, disembodied voices, and whispers. Also, when investigators visit the sanatorium, their devices such as, REMpods, spirit boxes EVP readers, and EMF readers never fail to get set off.

In conclusion, The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is now one of the most famously haunted places in the world, still standing after over one hundred years. It is also a historical site that tens of thousands of people visit each year. It never fails to give people paranormal experiences that they will never forget, and maybe even makes people believe that we aren’t the only things out there and that there’s something beyond this life. The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is, and will always be, an unforgettable location.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think, I'm open to suggestions!

Reviews

[Michael Sun Bear]

Hello neighbor. I read your most recent two stories and imagined you as a very thoughtful, philosophical, perhaps introverted individual. Then I was rather amazed by this story. How did you come across this piece of history so far from Vancouver? While these phenomena fascinate me, and I do believe they exist, I am skeptical of a single location housing such a colorful collection of entities that have partially passed from this realm and are unable to complete the transition. Sounds to me like propaganda press to encourage spook tourism. But I thank you for sharing; the story is totally new to me.

[Rose]

I've always been interested in the paranormal, and I saw an article about the sanatorium, so I checked it out and it is by far my favorite place I have researched.

[Schatzman Stefanie]

Thanks for sharing the history of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. I enjoyed reading it and was surprised it existed while I was a child. Haunted places, while interesting, often come with a tragic history.

[Chris]

Spell check will not correct real words, reading aloud and slowly usually detects wrong words being present.

Overall, an interesting piece.