Cinematic Haunts – Waverly Hills
Article By: Annie Riordan
Unless you’re currently taking the prescription drug Humira to treat your moderate to severe rheumatoid, psoriatic arthritis and/or Crohn’s disease, you really don’t have to worry about contracting tuberculosis these days. Tubercle bacillus is no longer the death sentence it once was a mere two hundred years ago, when one in four deaths in England were attributed to the disease, and one in six deaths in France as recently as 1918. The wasting illness – also known as The White Plague, Consumption and Koch’s Disease – was morbidly romanticized in the years prior to the Industrial Revolution, attributed to vampiric activity and believed to gift the afflicted with rare, pale beauty and bursts of artistic inspiration shortly before death.
But there’s really nothing romantic or attractive about spitting up bloody sputum in a sweat soaked bed. Because tuberculosis was an airborne infection, the afflicted had to be isolated from the healthy. Understand, there was no cure for TB a mere hundred years ago, and sanatoriums catering to the stricken offered no real treatment program other than exposure to fresh air and sunshine. Patients were made as comfortable as possible, but only about 50% made it out alive.
In 1910, a two story hospital was opened in the remote countryside of Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky for the express purpose of housing 50 TB patients. But the disease quickly reached epidemic proportions, thanks in large part to the vast areas of swampland present; it’s an ideal breeding ground for the bacteria. By 1911, the city of Louisville realized it “needed a bigger boat,” so to speak. The original plan was to erect a new city hospital in which to house the afflicted. This plan was quickly abandoned and patients were moved into a makeshift tent city on the Waverly grounds, pending construction of a larger facility.
Additional wings were added onto the existing structure in 1912 and 1916, but it wasn’t until 1926 that the full, five story, red brick Gothic monstrosity that we see today was opened to admit more than 400 patients. It is here that the tragic and morbid history of the hospital truly begins.
Waverly Hills served as a tuberculosis sanatorium for a mere 17 years (give or take a month or so), until the introduction of the antibiotic Streptomycin in 1943 did away with the disease’s death sentence. Legend places the death rate within Waverly’s walls at a whopping 63,000, although evidence has suggested that this is highly unlikely, if not totally ridiculous. The highest possible death toll, according to recent meticulous research, turns out to be a far less fantastic 8,212. But Waverly’s reputation for being haunted by its own sinister history has only grown since it closed its doors for good in 1981, following a failed attempt to revamp itself as a geriatric hospital, a move which prompted rumors of patient abuse. Since then, the building has attracted filmmakers, thrill seekers and ghost hunters alike, all of whom want a shot at investigating the “most haunted hospital in America.”
No doubt, it’s a spooky old place. Just watching it loom up before you as you make your way up the driveway is intimidating, and promotes a feeling of hopelessness and despair. But I get the same feeling whenever I go to the doctor’s office: nothing inspires more fear than a medical facility, whether it’s an insane asylum or a dentist’s office. Every hospital I’ve ever been in (and I’ve been in quite a few, thanks) has an aura of death about it, and if ghosts linger anywhere, they surely linger within the halls of the place of their passing. I’m not saying that Waverly is NOT haunted, but “the most haunted hospital in America?” I remain dubious.
The 2004 film “Death Tunnel” did little to help its credibility. Hoping to make a buck out of Waverly’s most gruesome attraction – a 500 foot long tunnel which runs beneath the building, once used as an entrance/exit for staff and supply trolley, later used to transport the dead in a more private manner, so that the remaining living would not be depressed by the sight – this shitty little shocker somehow managed to make the scariest hospital in America look like the set of a vacuous rock video. It’s awfully difficult to make such a foreboding structure as Waverly Hills, with its sorrowful history and its haunting memories, seem anything but scary, but that flick manages to do it.
In 2007, the hit TV show “Ghost Hunters” spent Halloween night doing a live investigation of Waverly. Their investigation yielded little in the way of hard evidence and was considerably less impressive than their initial investigation of the place in March of 2006, during which they did manage to catch thermal footage of what appeared to be a child running down a corridor. It was also reported that shadow figures had been seen wandering the notoriously haunted fifth floor, where legend tells of a pregnant nurse by name of Mary Hillenburg either committing suicide or dying during the process of an illegal abortion gone wrong. However, it’s interesting to note that there are only two documented deaths in the region of individuals named Hillenburg, and both deaths occurred well after the hospital was closed.
If you’re looking for the ghosts of Waverly, you can content yourself with reruns of Ghost Hunters, available on either YouTube or Hulu, or you can book your tour or overnight stay at the joint at http://www.therealwaverlyhills.com/. But hurry up – there’s been talk since 2008 of turning the former sanatorium into a ritzy restaurant or some such shit. Perhaps the shitty economy has stalled those plans long enough for you to check Waverly out in all of its dilapidated glory. See? Even in these dark times of political strife and economic woe, there’s always something to be thankful for!
