We were instructed to keep our flashlights off unless we were navigating the stairs because the building is so dark and accidents can happen when someone is suddenly blinded by the light. Inside Waverly Hills SanitoriumĪfter the body chute, our tour guide led us into the building. Space is small and tight when lots of people are in the building so anyone who is claustrophobic might not want to enter. To combat this, they began sending the bodies down a supply tunnel where the living patients never had to see the corpses earning the chute the gruesome nickname “The Death Tunnel.” On the tour, guests are allowed to slide down to the bottom and make their way back up the stairs or walk to the bottom of the stairs. The doctors noticed the patients’ morale dropping as their friends and family members succumbed to the disease and were wheeled past their rooms. Originally used to bring supplies or coal into the building, the body chute took on a new job when the death toll at Waverly reached 1 person per hour. The first question, asked in utter seriousness, was, “Have you seen any elementals, you know, those little fairies, out in the woods?” Assured that no elementals had been sighted, we began our tour in the infamous “body chute” or “death tunnel.” The Waverly Hills Body Chute Our group seemed to be evenly divided between skeptics and believers. I admit, as much as I enjoy visiting haunted locations, I am a skeptic. I’m not sure if there is a limit to the number of people allowed on each public tour, but 20 made a fairly large group in some of the rooms we entered. Our group included approximately 20 people. Once we were finally allowed inside the gate, we walked to the former laundry house, where the tour groups meet before entering the building. I had hoped to be able to wander around the grounds and take pictures, but the gates remain locked until shortly before the tour. I had waited six years to mark this site off my bucket list and craned my neck to see around the trees, barely making out the imposing building from behind the locked gate. I caught my first glimpse of Waverly Hills Sanatorium as we rounded a curve on the narrow road. In 2001 the Sanitorium was purchased by a private owner who is working to restore the building. Complaints were lodged about the care the patients received and the home was closed by the state in 1981. In 1962, it was reopened as a “nursing home” known as Woodhaven Medical Services. When a cure for tuberculosis was found, the facility was no longer needed and shut its doors in 1961.

Anyone who entered Waverly Hills, from the doctors and nurses to the patients, had to say goodbye to everything familiar to them and move into the facility permanently. Because TB was known as the white plague, highly contagious and deadly, Waverly Hills became a self-contained community, with their own post office, water treatment facility, and farm. This building was designed to house 400 patients. With TB reaching epidemic proportions in the area, a new hospital was constructed and opened in 1926. But, did it live up to the hype? Here’s my experience with the Waverly Hills Sanatorium Tour.Ī state of the art hospital for Tuberculosis patients in a time when there was no cure, Waverly Hills opened in 1910 in a small 2 story building designed to house 40 patients. When we planned a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, I added it to our destinations, much to the bemusement of Bryan and the kids. I put this on my bucket list of places to visit because who doesn’t like to spend their vacation time in haunted prisons, houses, and hospitals? The answer was clear, no one in my family, but I digress. One of the top ten in the book was Waverly Hills. My curiosity was piqued and I began to research their history, discovering it was labeled “one of the most haunted places in the United States.” Later, I picked up a book of some of the Most Haunted Places in America. The first time I heard of Waverly Hills Sanatorium was on an episode of Ghost Adventures.

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