Waverly Hills Sanatorium

By: Kelsey Peterson and Maggie McCormack

10-26-21

Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Hospitals help people right? Well, not this one... This is a place that will forever be remembered as Waverly Hills Sanitorium.

It all started in 1883 when a man named Major Thomas H. Hays purchased an area of land to build a schoolhouse for his daughters to attend. Then an epidemic approached out of nowhere. 140 people with a disease of tuberculosis which was also known as the white plague were in need of a place to stay isolated from the public. By then Thomas had no choice but to make the little 2 story schoolhouse into a hospital.

The hospital didn’t help patients; it ended up killing way more people than survived. The mortality rate was about one death per day. Not as bad as COVID but remember that this was a while ago and that was just for the small community. The fact that so many people died there wasn’t the only reason it makes it creepy but the fact that people say, “Unfortunately, this was not the case for so many who walked through those doors and some of those souls still linger within its walls.”

Another creepy thing is that In order to prevent patients from seeing the corpses of dead patients, a special chute called “The Body Chute” was built, which allowed the dead to be transported out at night. There was a railroad that went directly behind the Sanatorium, where the chute ended, and the bodies would be loaded onto the train and taken away.

If you think that wasn’t scary enough, well there is more to come. For example, it has a death tunnel that was 525 feet itself. It ran all the way down the hill. You might be wondering why it’s called the “Death Tunnel” . Well, the patients that passed on at Waverly hills were left at the end of the tunnel. It was their workers would be detached to gather the bodies of the dead and either burn, bury, or transport them elsewhere.

In conclusion, this place creeps us out. I would never want to visit it, YOU can! You are able to tour this place for the cost of $25 per person, according to https://www.therealwaverlyhills.com. Be careful! You might see a ghost!!

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