HAUNTED PLACES / KENTUCKY

WAVERLY HILLS,
LOUISVILLE.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium treated tuberculosis patients on a hill southwest of Louisville from 1910 to 1961, then housed a nursing home, and is now run for tours and overnight investigations. This page covers its history, the reports, the television visits, and how to run a session there.

The history

Around 1900 Louisville had one of the highest tuberculosis death rates in the United States. A Board of Tuberculosis Hospital, set up in 1906, chose a hill in the southwest of Jefferson County, and the sanatorium opened there on July 26, 1910 as a two-story wooden building and two open-air pavilions with room for 40 to 50 patients.

It filled at once; a building for advanced cases followed in 1912, a children's pavilion in 1914, and by then the site held about 130 people. The five-story brick hospital that stands today, designed by James J. Gaffney and D. X. Murphy, opened on October 17, 1926 with room for more than 400 patients. Like other Southern hospitals of its time it was segregated; its first Black nurse, Esther Maxwell Barrens, was hired that summer.

Treatment before antibiotics was rest, food and fresh air, and patients spent their days out on the long porches. The hospital ran as a small town, with its own laundry, gardens and post office, and a tunnel about 500 feet long carried steam and supplies up from the heating plant at the foot of the hill. The stories say it also carried the bodies of patients down to waiting hearses, out of sight of the wards, which is why visitors call it the body chute.

How many people died there is not known. The figure of 63,000 travels with the building, but no record supports it; estimates run from several thousand, counted from surviving death certificates, to the 20,000 to 60,000 the historical society's staff have given. Much of the paperwork was lost in the 1937 flood.

Streptomycin reached Waverly Hills patients in 1949 and admissions fell away; the sanatorium closed in June 1961. The building reopened in 1962 as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, a nursing home, which was overcrowded and short of staff; the state closed it over reports of neglect in the early 1980s (sources give 1980 and 1982). Tina and Charlie Mattingly bought the empty hospital in 2001, formed the Waverly Hills Historical Society, and fund its repair with tours and an autumn haunted house. The buildings have been on the National Register of Historic Places since July 12, 1983.

What people report

The venue itself names a few figures: Timmy, said to be a boy who roams the hallways and likes to play ball, and a man in white reported drifting through the corridors. Guides and visitors describe shadow people along the open porches and doors that slam with no one near them. Tina Mattingly told WAVE 3 News in 2019 that she has heard noises and doors shutting for no reason, but that the site does not promote activity: visitors should have their own experiences.

The room people ask about is Room 502, on the fifth floor. The story told on the tours is that a nurse was found hanged there in 1928 and that a second nurse jumped from the roof in 1932; no record of either death has been found, and the versions disagree, so it stays a story. Overnight guests also point to the fourth-floor corridor, the first-floor wing that held the morgue, and the tunnel.

None of this has been checked against anything; it is what people say they met in a very large, very dark building where thousands of patients died.

Accounts of hauntings here are folklore and entertainment, not verified events.

On television

As a matter of record, Ghost Hunters filmed here first, in 2006, and returned in 2007, 2011 and 2020, the last time for Return to Waverly Hills. The American series of Most Haunted followed on November 25, 2008, Ghost Adventures in its fourth season on October 8, 2010, and Paranormal Lockdown on January 13, 2017. BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural released The Haunted Halls of Waverly Hills Hospital on April 28, 2017; Amy Bruni and Adam Berry's series Kindred Spirits aired The Shadow of Death on February 21, 2019; and Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej opened Ghost Files here with The Death Tunnel of Waverly Hills Sanatorium on September 23, 2022. The last is on the show's own channel: Watch the Ghost Files visit on Watcher's official channel.

Visiting and running your own session

The Waverly Hills Historical Society opens the building from March 1 to the end of August, and the nights fill months ahead. Historical tours of about two hours run in daylight; paranormal tours of the same length run after dark and take in all five floors and the body chute. Public investigations last about six hours, semi-guided, for ages 18 and up, with junior nights for 13- to 17-year-olds with a parent. Private groups of ten or more get about eight hours at their own pace, and the old pump house has been made over as a place to sleep afterwards. From late September to Halloween a haunted house attraction takes over on weekend nights; dates and hours change, so check the venue's site.

The venue does not supply ghost-hunting equipment, but you may bring your own on investigations; its one stated rule about cameras is no flash photography of the exterior after dark. There are no working elevators, the building can be very warm in summer, and visitors are asked to dress for the weather and bring water.

Thousands died here of a slow disease, and nursing-home residents were neglected after them. Walk it the way you would walk a cemetery: quiet voices, nothing carved or taken. For a session, a patient room at the far end of an upper-floor wing is still and well away from the group's flashlights, radios and meters, which move a phone's magnetic reading. Set the phone on the floor or a windowsill and leave it alone.

Try a session there

Spooky Box runs a spirit box-style session on an Android phone, and the long, empty wards here suit it. The phone's sensors decide the moment, chance decides the word, and each word shows the reason it came up. Record the session as audio or video and replay it from any word.

Sources

Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Wikipedia: dates, the 1926 building, the tunnel and the television visits.
Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the Waverly Hills Historical Society's official site: tours, investigations, season and rules.
Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Kentucky Historic Institutions: the 1910 opening, streptomycin and the later owners.
History and hauntings at former tuberculosis hospital draws in thousands each year, WAVE 3 News: the owners' death estimate and Tina Mattingly's account, May 2019.

Questions

Is Waverly Hills Sanatorium really haunted?

No one can say. Guides, visitors and television crews report a boy in the hallways, a man in white, shadow figures and slamming doors, and tours tell of a nurse in Room 502. Those accounts are reports and folklore, passed on by the people who had them, not verified events. What is certain is that thousands of patients died here of tuberculosis.

Can you stay overnight at Waverly Hills Sanatorium?

Yes. Public investigations run about six hours, semi-guided, for ages 18 and up; private groups of ten or more get about eight hours at their own pace; and the old pump house can be rented for sleeping afterwards. The season runs from March to August and the nights fill months ahead, so check the venue's site.

How many people died at Waverly Hills Sanatorium?

Nobody knows. The figure of 63,000 repeated on television has no record behind it; the historical society's staff have estimated 20,000 to 60,000, and writers who have counted the surviving death certificates arrive at several thousand. Much of the paperwork was lost in the 1937 flood, so no exact total exists.

Spooky Box is paranormal entertainment. It uses device sensor activity and a word engine to create atmospheric sessions. Generated words and sensor readings do not establish the presence of spirits or verified communication.

WAVERLY HILLS,LOUISVILLE.