The Historical Society and the family that owns the property hold fundraising events throughout the year. Its this property that the Board of Tuberculosis would buy in 1908. 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. Still, several sites on the property, where more than 6,000 people are believed to have died, have taken on a life of their own in paranormal popular culture. Across the Atlantic in the United States, and out of his own triumphant experience with the disease, Edward Trudeau would establish the first sanatorium in the country at Saranac Lake, New York in 1884. The fifth floor also featured a heliotherapy department, where . Fandom Muthead Futhead Fanatical 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,. As the state of the patients worsened, people began to die in the facility on an almost-daily basis. 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. As we entered the stairwell we somehow ended up on the floor below us and not the ground floor. 8. Who's running Waverly Hills? Whatever is going on here has been enough to attract a great amount of attention from the paranormal community and cement this place's status as one of the granddaddies of haunted places, and if you feel brave or curious there are plenty of ghost tours available for you to take. Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky opened in 1910 as a facility for treating tuberculosis patients at the height of the early-twentieth century outbreak of the disease. In later years, the property was repeatedly vandalized, and landowners didnt seem to care much about upkeep on the building -- which was nearly condemned. 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. It was clear that a bigger facility would soon be needed. They would also retain its enduring name. 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. A childrens pavilion was built in 1916 that housed 40 children and included a schoolroom. There are many reports of the infamous shadow people of Waverly Hills. What they catch on video lives up to its reputation. It happened that Thomas Hercules Hays, a former Confederate veteran and state senator, had bought a property about ten miles from Louisville for his home. The reasons for doing this may have been to keep from spreading disease once the body was brought back into town, and/or to make the body lighter. The massive, collegiate, gothic style Sanatorium that you see in the 1926 photo (above) remains standing on Waverly Hill, today. The Board of Tuberculosis Hospital kept the name when they bought the land and opened the sanatorium. It was considered very state-of-the-art for its day. Its supposedly around 500 feet long and leads down the hill. 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. Before it gained fame as a so-called "haunted" site, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium served as an important medical center in Louisville. Discovery+ version contains 4 minutes of additional footage. The idea was to be completely self-reliant and isolated, and indeed everyone who came here, including doctors, nurses, and staff were required to cut off all links to the outside world, say goodbye to those they knew, and remain within this place permanently, making it almost like leaving Earth behind on a one-way voyage to some far away world. Director: Christopher Saint Booth | Stars: Christopher Saint Booth, Philip Adrian Booth, Keith Age, Chris Haberman. If you don't believe in ghosts, you will NOW!!! The Waverly Hills Sanatorium was closed in 1961; it was first quarantined and then renovated. A Haunting (2005- ) TV-PG | 60 min | Documentary, Horror, Mystery. One of the creepier Waverly Hills legends is a room near the morgue dubbed the draining room, where dead bodies were supposedly hung on hooks and cut open top to bottom to rid them of infected fluids. The original building only housed around 40 people, but by 1926 it had expanded to treat over 500. The management allows tours that can only take place by way of prior reservation. Its said that the state shut it down due to reports of improper care and physical abuse of the elderly patients there. Even with many new procedures available, it was impossible to save everyone. When I looked to the floor it was a brick. Some time before the property was purchased in 2001, a story circulated about a group of teenage boys who snuck into the 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. 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. In 1944, there was a groundbreaking discovery of a type of antibiotic that could successfully treat tuberculosis, called streptomycin, and with this amazing new treatment the need for such a large sanatorium became steadily unnecessary, rendering Waverly Hills obsolete. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. In 2001, Charles and Tina Mattingly bought the property. The Board of Tuberculosis Hospital later purchased the land and built the sanatorium, which opened in 1910 as a small quarantine for tuberculosis patients. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. Louisville's Waverly Hills Sanatorium has been called "the most terrifying building in America," with an infamous history that draws paranormal thrill-seekers from all over the world. The Midwestern United States' tribute to Michelangelo is a foam statue sprayed with gaudy gold paint. Vandalized, damaged, nearly condemned. Waverly Hills Sanatorium was an abandoned sanatorium Sam and Dean visited in order to collect the many ghosts haunting there. Votes: 439. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. The Haunted Halls Of Waverly Hills Hospital: Directed by Ryan Bergara. Regardless, these medical advances would eventually put facilities such as the Waverly Hills Sanatorium out of business. It is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the US. In their bid to defeat the Darkness once and for all, Sam Winchester formulated a plan to use souls to build a destructive bomb. One of the most haunted places at the old sanatorium is the tunnel once used to shuttle away dead bodies, often called The Body Chute, which is patrolled by all manner of shadowy, often very aggressive apparitions. 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. A homeless man and his dog supposedly fell down the elevator shaft when the building was vacant, and some have seen the. There were no more shadows, no banging, no flashing light. Waverly Hills Sanatorium opened its doors on July 26, 1910 and housed thousands of patients suffering from tuberculosis. In 1912, patients in advanced stages of infection were moved from from the City Hospital to Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Several people have claimed shadowy figures have peered around corners at them. A Q&A with the man behind the show. Chris then began to run down the hall and we gave chase. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. The fifth floor consisted of two nurses stations, a pantry, a linen room, medicine room and two medium-sized rooms on both sides of the two nurses stations. Mostly I saw the shadows surrounding us, banging that seemed to come from everywhere, the ceiling, floor, and walls. To this effect the original facility consisted of two open-air pavilions which housed 40 victims of the disease. 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. One story has it that in 1928, one of the nurses, Mary Hillenburg, hung herself in room 502. By: Maggie Miller Related To: Haunted In the early 1900s, Kentucky's hospitals were at a breaking point. Before they could do so though, several of them reported the sounds of footsteps, a door swinging shut and the smell of fresh baked bread in the air. With Ryan Bergara, Shane Madej, Tina Mattingly, Helen Pan. But it wasnt a silver bullet. Construction on this building began in 1908 and opened for business on July 26, 1910. 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. This is the building that still stands to this day. Research notes for Supernatural Season 2 Episode 4. Previous property owners had no desire to maintain the luster of the building and did little to stop people from slowly destroying her. And they didnt, that was until a breakthrough came in the 1940s, which would serve both as a ray of hope and the end of days for Waverly Hills. On the other hand, the toll Tuberculosis was exacting in Jefferson County was morphing from bad to worse. Patients in every condition were accepted including those in early stages to those in the final stages. Because of its success, several others would spring up all over the country. He started a one-room schoolhouse on Pages Lane and hired Lizzie Lee Harris as the teacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium, http://paranormal.about.com/od/hauntedplaces/ig/World-s-Most-Haunted-Place/Waverly-Hills-Sanatorium.htm, http://practicalwanderlust.com/2016/09/louisville-kentucky-a-locals-guide-to-visiting-fall.html. "Room 502" is also notorious. And the United States abounds with such paranormal tales. Construction on the second hospital was underway in March 1924. Bodies were not dumped but rather carried down the tunnel to the bottom of the hill, where they could be collected by a hearse, as there was no cemetery at the hospital. Ghost stories:Here are 300+ haunted places to explore in Kentucky and Indiana. This was a nurses station where a nurse allegedly harmed herself after discovering she was pregnant. Open to the public in 1910, the first medical facility consisted of two open-air pavilions, each housing 20 patients. It could accommodate at least 400 + patients and be considered one of the most modern and well-equipped facilities at the time. It also shows a special department where the (presumably uninfected) children of adult sanatorium patients lived and were taken care of. (Note the slightly different spelling of Waverley here. In its heyday, Waverly Hills could be called state of the art. It was well-equipped and considered modern. OBSAH. "), Meet Wayne Hettinger:How did ignorance help create Thunder Over Louisville? It would close in 1961, and reopen the following year as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, before closing its medical business twenty years later. The facility was closed and renovated in 1961, reopening the following year as a nursing home where it served patients until closing again in 1981. 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? SPOOKED, The Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, documents paranormal evidence including, ORBS, EVPS, Shadow People, Ghostly Photography and video, interviews with actual patients, ghost hunters and the people of Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Construction of what now stands as Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky began March of 1924. The Waverly Hills Historical Society runs tours by reservation only each year, March through August. This original building was meant to hold 40-50 patients at one time, roughly half male and half female. Supernatural Wiki is a FANDOM TV Community. The Board of Tuberculosis Hospital went looking for a suitable place on which to put up a sanatorium. Some other treatments were a bit more ominous and often nearly as deadly as the disease itself, such as and pneumectomy, a procedure in which infected parts of the lung and sometimes the entire lung were surgically removed, and thoracoplasty, which was the removal of several rib bones from the chest wall to collapse a lung. The tunnel is an attraction. Then, the tuberculosis epidemic began to spread in Jefferson County, and the hospital could not keep up. It was thought that doing so would close up the small holes that tuberculosis causes. Numerous shadow figures, apparitions of patients, nurses, and doctors, roving cold spots, orbs, anomalous lights, moving objects, locked doors unlocking and opening themselves, electronic equipment going haywire, EVP (electronic voice phenomenon), being accosted by invisible hands, unexplained physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, and changes to heart rate, you name it, Waverly Hills has it. 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 today is said to be haunted by those who died there. Ruins of a historic medical facility sits eerily by the water. An event referred to as the Lbeck disaster, in which a contaminated vaccine ended up killing 72 children in Germany, curtailed the popularity of the BCG vaccine for several years -- even though the vaccine itself was exonerated. Like those who are known to be pet lovers viciously harming cats. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. !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 Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). It was not known at the time that Tuberculosis was an airborne disease. It was also in ruins and the team quickly retreated. Waverly Hills Sanatorium sits on land that was originally purchased by Major Thomas H. Hays in 1883. The Waverly Hills Historical Society welcomes you to the official Facebook page of one. Not all people believe ghost stories such as the ones that have plagued Waverly Hills. 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. Today, it stands today as a monument in the fight against the dreaded disease. The building is host to ghost hunters from all over the globe. A reminder to visitors that Waverly Hills is private property and the residence of it's owners. We calmed him a little and it was as if someone just shut it all off like a light switch. Tuberculosis got its nicknames from the sickly pallor of the victims the disease claimed. Aerial Views and Ghost Hunting at Waverly Hills Sanatorium, known by many as \"One of The MOST HAUNTED PLACES ON EARTH\". Everyone at Waverly patients, nurses, doctors, and other employees had to say goodbye to everything they knew on the outside world. Nestled on the top of a placid hill, the old Waverly Hills Sanatorium once tried to heal tuberculosis with peace and good vibes. When the visit was over, the visitors left Waverly and ventured back out into the community. The bitter feud over Louisville's most famous haunted site, What issues must Louisville's next mayor try to fix? Waverly Hills Sanatorium is known as one of the most haunted places in America. The story goes that Lizzie Lee Harris loved Sir Walter Scotts series, The Waverley Novels -- more than, Hays reportedly like the name and so named all of his land Waverley Hill. It is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the US. :The bitter feud over Louisville's most famous haunted site. Essentially, once you went to Waverly Hills -- as a patient, a nurse, or a doctor -- you no longer got to be a part of the outside world. In those days this was a scary, incurable disease that was largely seen as akin to a death sentence, made even more panic-inducing in that very little was known about the disease or how it spread, and so patients were typically locked away from the rest of the world in sanatoriums. They've feared Waverly Hills Sanatorium their entire lives, and for good reason. 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? This is where, according to the stories, people have jumped to their deaths, have seen shapes moving in the windows and have heard disembodied voices that order trespassers to get out.There is a lot of speculation as to what went on in this part of the hospital but what is believed is that mentally insane tuberculosis patients were housed on the fifth floor. Oh, and while we are here, of course Waverly Hills is extremely haunted, with Mattingly saying: When you have that kind of death, you can't help but to think there might be a spirit lingering around that just isn't happy. What they catch on video lives up to its reputation. We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. 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. However the spelling fluctuated between both spellings many times over the years.EXPLORATION:One of the legends told of Waverly Hills involves a man in a white coat who has been seen walking in the kitchen and the smell of cooking food that sometimes wafts through the room. 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The assistant medical director and as a monument in the us special department the., http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium, http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium, http: //paranormal.about.com/od/hauntedplaces/ig/World-s-Most-Haunted-Place/Waverly-Hills-Sanatorium.htm, http //practicalwanderlust.com/2016/09/louisville-kentucky-a-locals-guide-to-visiting-fall.html!