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Episode 40 – "Waverly Hills Sanatorium and the Death Tunnel"

Death Dames Podcast

Release Date: 11/13/2019

Episode 40 – Waverly Hills Sanatorium and the Death Tunnel

  • Today’s episode is a history episode for all you history buffs out there, but I think the paranormal fans will enjoy it too, because the location we’ll be discussing today is an extremely well known location with a great deal of spooks and creeps for those who believe in ghosts and such. We don’t really deal in the paranormal here, but I do want to talk about this place because I think the stain that it, and places like it, have left on the mentality of the modern world needs to be scrubbed away. Also, as a bit of a personal note, when I was much younger like, 13-15ish, I saw a ghost hunting team visit this location on a television show, and the story impressed upon me so much that I still remember to this day. Today, we are going to talk about the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, and its tunnel of death. So before I start, yes, Lila, we did watch the AWESOMELY bad movie Death Tunnel which was based on this story, back when we were in high school, or just out of high school. Of course it wasn’t as good as resident favorite horror movie of the podcast, Boo which is cinematic genius, but it was still painfully terrible and wonderful. However, the real story behind the Waverly Hills Sanatorium is just as horrible as the plot from any horror movie. So, hold on to your strait jackets, because here we go.

  • In the early 1900s, the state of Kentucky, and most of the country, was undergoing a rampant outbreak of tuberculosis which was decimating the population. Tuberculosis was known at the time as the “White Plague” and was highly contagious and often fatal, especially at the turn of the Century. However, in this area of Kentucky, it was believed that so many of these cases began due to the Ohio River wetlands, which acted perfectly as a breeding ground for the bacteria which caused TB. Many different cities and towns, spurred on by public fear of the disease, were working on methods to contain the spread of the disease, and in the city of Louisville, the solution was believed to be the creation of a hospital, where the dying could be kept separate from the rest of the population in a sort of disease induced exile. To house these victims, a two story wooden sanatorium was created which held about 20 patients, and was to be used for the treatment of “early cases,” in an attempt to save lives.

  • In 1911, the city began preparations for the new Louisville City Hospital, which would be a brand new hospital which would treat the people of the city. However, there was a caveat… it was decided that no patients with tuberculosis would be admitted. Considering how widespread the disease was, the people of Louisville were concerned. Where would people go? Sure it was most likely a death sentence, but people still needed somewhere to be treated. The city decided that a small sanatorium would be built specifically for the treatment of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis, and the city gave $25,000, which would be around $650,000 in today’s money. A substantial amount, but considering the money that is required for building a hospital, even in 1911, they would need to use all of it.


    [Pictured: Interior Today. Photo Credit: tripadvisor.com]

  • The location for this new Sanitarium was up for debate as well, and ultimately, the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital found a plot of land that was for sale, named Waverly Hill. Waverly Hill was originally purchased by Major Thomas H Hays in 1883, where he set up his family’s home. Hays had two young daughters who attended class taught by a woman named Lizzie Lee Harris, and apparently, Harris had a fondness for Walter Scott’s Waverly novels, so she chose the name Waverley School for the small, brand new schoolhouse. Hays liked the sound of it, so he swiped the name and decided to call his swath of land Waverley Hill. After the Board of Tuberculosis Hospital purchased the land, they decided they too liked the name, so they decided to name their new Sanitarium, Waverly Hills. Once completed the Waverly Hills Sanatorium was a stately building, and to this day is listed as being a beautiful example of early 20th century early Tudor Gothic Revival style. It was stunning, ominous, and looked like the archetypal haunted house, which is indicative of the future it would go on to have.

  • The need for a place to keep patients was immediate, and even though the building was not complete at the time, all the Tuberculosis patients were kicked out of the City Hospital on August 31st, 1912, and they were kept in tents on the Waverly Hills grounds until the building was complete. I’m sure this was totally healthy for people suffering from an extremely violent disease to be kept out in the open late summer air in Kentucky, with all manners of bugs, sunshine, and heat to help the bacteria kill them quickly. Waverly Hills Sanitarium opened soon after, however, and its maximum capacity was 20 patients. However, by December of that same year, they took in an additional 40 patients, due to the demand for housing for people suffering from the disease. But, as the outbreak took hold over the course of the next 2 years, they were forced to create a new wing, the children’s pavilion, which added another 50 beds. The children’s pavilion was not only for sick children, but also for the children of tuberculosis patients who had no one else to care for them. I can’t get over how depressing that must be to be a patients child, knowing that your mother or father was struggling with the same disease that other children around you were dying of, not to mention the risk of exposure for the patients children being stashed in the same room as those with TB.


    [Pictured: Overcrowded Patients. Photo Credit: courier-journal.com]

  • However, due to the disease reaching epidemic proportions, Waverly Hills became increasingly overcrowded, and room once more became sparse. Additions and additions and additions were added to the original structure, eventually creating a massive expansion, consisting of a five story building that could hold more than 400 patients, which opened in 1926. Eventually, Waverly Hills became a self-contained community, and was a city in itself. Waverly Hills had its own zip code, post office, water treatment facility, and even had food production methods used, including the growing of fruits and vegetables, and even domesticating animals to be slaughtered for meat. The point was to keep as many outside people from coming within the Waverly walls as they could, to ensure that spread of the disease would be down. In effect, this created an entirely alienated city with a heavy shadow of death and disease. Patients, nurses, doctors, and other workers pretty much had to cut ties with their former lives, knowing that there was a pretty significant chance that they would never make it out to see them again. Unfortunately, however, they still had “visiting day” occasionally, in which patients would receive visits from loved ones who would come to visit, spend the day, and then just saunter on out, none the wiser, undoubtedly carrying the disease on their skin.

  • At the time of construction of this new massive sanitarium, a tunnel was constructed as well, which acted as an entrance and exit for the workers of the Sanatorium. Connecting to the first floor, the corridor was over 500 feet to the bottom of the large hill that the Sanatorium was built upon. The tunnel connected to a cart which moved up and down the stair case which would be used to transport supplies and other necessaries, which could be brought in this way to reduce contamination from the infected patients within the sanitariums walls. Also, the tunnel was completely finished, with flooring, and was made out of concrete, making it extremely sturdy and long lasting. Ironically, even to this day, it remains one of the least damaged parts of the former hospital. But we’ll talk more about the tunnel in a bit.

  • Tuberculosis treatment itself at the time was… not great. This was, of course, a time before we had antibiotics and other modern medicines, so desperate doctors and nurses used anything they could find to alleviate the pain and suffering of their charges. This included the use of heat lamps to burn out the fever. Now, anyone who has had a serious flu, pneumonia, etc, you know how horrible it is to be hot when you’re sick, but in this case, it was believed that the Tuberculosis patients needed the heat to fight the illness. Of course, this did not work. Another popular treatment method of the time was the use of fresh air. Yup. Oh, you’re dying slowly and horribly? Coughing up blood? You need a nice breath of air. In fact, at this point in history, Tuberculosis patients were encouraged to go areas with thinner air, to get away from stuffy or humid air and breathe air which was, in their mind, fresher? A lot of sufferers of Tuberculosis actually would travel to the Rocky Mountains, as it was believed to be the place for people with TB. Unfortunately, fresh air was also not a cure. Some days, nurses would just desperately try positive reassurance to improve morale, thinking if the sufferers did not dwell on their diseases, they would feel better.

  • Of course, these treatments sound silly, but they were a hell of a lot better than the actual treatments being done by the doctors at Waverly. One of the medical procedures attempted was the surgery called Artificial Pneumothorax. In this, patients would have their lungs collapsed in the hope that the holes being caused by TB would heal if the lungs were collapsed. This was not particularly helpful, as those suffering from the disease already could not breath very well, so purposely altering the lungs did not help. Another procedure attempted was the Thoracoplasty. This surgery is pretty bad. Also, keep in mind, there was no anesthesia, just morphine to numb pain, and the patient would be awake the whole time. Patients would be cut open on the front and the back of their chests. Doctors would then remove up to 8 ribs. However, and here is the kicker, you could only remove 3 ribs at a time, so this would have to have been done over the course of multiple procedures. After the procedure was done, a Lobectomy would be performed to remove damaged tissues.

  • But, despite everyone’s best efforts, there came a big concern that had to be dealt with. The numbers of the dead were rising each day, and there was a pretty heavy hit on morale when the patients were forced to witness the piling up of the dead from the very disease they were afflicted with. At this point, TB was killing a patient per day, and a negative outlook on life was the last thing that the patients needed, as, although it may sound foolish or blissfully optimistic, it did help out the patients if they weren’t obsessing over their impeding demise. In fact, death rates began to rise as morale fell. And it wasn’t just the patients who were being affected. There were rumors that some of the staff and nurses suffered from Post-Traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety, and there was one story which, although unsubstantiated, could potentially be believed. Apparently, so upset with the constant death she was surrounded with daily, and afraid for her own mortality, a nurse allegedly leapt from the tower of the Sanitarium to her death. At this point, the numbers of dead were overwhelming the staff. The sanatorium had to do something. So they did.


    [Pictured: In the Death Chute. Photo Credit: onlyinyourstate.com]

  • In an attempt to minimize the spread of the disease, on top of a desire to remove the overwhelming numbers of the dead without further upsetting the living patients, the staff began carrying the bodies of the dead underground, in the tunnel system created leading to and from the hospital. This is where the infamous tunnel would get its future name, the Death Chute. The dead would be transported to the end of the tunnel, where they would be left there, unceremoniously dumped. Workers would then collet the bodies from outside the tunnel, where they would be burned, buried, or sent elsewhere to be processed. For many patients of the hospital, the tunnel was a one way trip. Removing the bodies in a more secretive manner did help to ensure that patients were not constantly faced with their own morbidity, but it did not really help the numbers, as it is estimated that the Death Chute had seen more dead than most modern hospitals do in their first 3 years, and were talking massive hospitals. Fewer than 5% of those admitted to Waverly Hills would survive their illnesses. It didn’t help, of course, when, in moments when patients were dying at a rapid rate, and the workers could not keep up, even with the use of the tunnel, corpses would be stored in the food storage rooms to keep them cold, which again, undoubtedly helped to spread disease.

  • However, the end was in sight, because a medical breakthrough happened in 1944 which ultimately stopped the spread of TB in its tracks. Streptomycin, an antibiotic treatment was discovered which successfully treated and cured TB, which meant that at this point, thousands of people would no longer needlessly die and suffer. Because of this, the numbers of patients slowly began to trickle down, and medical equipment was sold, nurses and doctors numbers dwindled, and the massive halls soon emptied. The number of cases steadily lowered over the years, and eventually Waverly Hills closed in 1961, when the need for such a massive hospital was no more. From this point, the remaining buildings of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium became a ghost town. Understandably still scarred form the long reign of Tuberculosis on patients, the empty buildings were quarantined for years, until they were eventually renovated into the Woodhaven Medical Services, which was a facility specifically for the treatment and housing of elderly patients.


    [Pictured: The Face of the Sanitarium. Photo Credit: paranormalresearchsociety.org]

  • Many of the patients at the time were sufferers of dementia, or were intellectually disabled. Some were wheelchair users, or were confined to their beds due to result of their age or illnesses. Unfortunately, the absence of Tuberculosis in this new hospital did nothing to stop the dark cloud that seemed to permeate over the buildings. Rumors began to spread of the use of cruel methods of treatment being performed on the patients of Woodhaven, and, as many of you may remember from our episode on Poveglia Island in Italy, experimentation, particularly ones of a violent or cruel nature, were not uncommon at this time in asylums all over the globe. Electrotherapy, electric shock therapy, lobotomies, all manner of traumatic and painful surgeries were rumored to be occurring on patients, all of this often effecting the mental state of the staff as well, who had to see the results of this testing and have it weigh on their minds. There were many recorded suicides, sometimes the patients, and often times of the staff who saw horrible things in their day to day jobs. Despite this, there was no one to help the people trapped within, and the experiments continued on until 1981, when Woodhaven was finally closed, when the state of Kentucky launched an investigation and the huge amount of patient neglect was reported to them. 1981 is disgustingly and embarrassingly late, and was too little too late for potentially thousands of victims who lost their lives on the premises. According to Dr. J Frank Stewart, a previous Medical Director of Woodhaven, he believed that over 8,000 people had died on Waverly’s property, including employees who took their own lives.


    [Pictured: Interior Today. Photo Credit: tripadvisor.com]

  • Once the hospital shuttered its doors for good, because there wasn’t enough terrible things being done on the land, a man named J. Clifford Todd made a purchase of the land. Spending just over three million dollars, Todd aimed to convert the building into the only possible thing that could be worse and more violent than a hospital or sanitarium. Care to guess? Yeah, they wanted to make it a prison. Eventually however, the plans to construct a prison were abandoned when neighbors of the area protested. Apparently they were okay with a Tuberculosis Hospital and then a sanitarium where patients were abused, but a prison was too far. They then proposed the location be converted into apartments, but it ended up staying empty, until, in March of 1996, a man named Robert Alberhasky purchased the site. Alberhasky was a religious man, and was the leader of a foundation called Christ the Redeemer Foundation. Using their funds, they planned to build a worship center on this site, and right next to it, they planned on building the largest statue of Jesus in the entire world, which definitely sounds like something Jesus would have been on board with! Sorry, I won’t get into my thoughts on mega churches, not the place for that. On the plus side though, along with giganto-Jesus, the foundation had plans to use the site for an arts center, which is pretty cool. Overall, the conversion of the location into a chapel, theater, and *ahem* gift shop would have ended up costing the Foundation around $12 Million dollars. Ironically, the people of the foundation did not believe in mega Jesus, and after a year of accepting donations, a whopping $3,000 was raised to put towards the creation of the massive religious tourist destination. Despite the Foundation’s efforts in reaching out all over the globe, giganto-Jesus wasn’t meant to be, and the project was canceled in December of 1997.


    [Pictured: Waverly Hills today. Photo Credit: Kris Arnold - http://www.krisarnold.com]

  • From here, the former Waverly Place sanatorium began to rot away, with no inhabitants but the shadows of its former life, and local fauna which lived within the walls. The owner has since tried to destroy the former hospital, first attempting to have it declared condemned, which was denied. The owner then decided to give the old insurance fraud scheme a try by crashing a bulldozer into the southeast side, hoping that the damage would weaken the buildings structure and it would collapse on itself, so he could collect the insurance money. This, thankfully, did not work, but it definitely didn’t help the decaying condition of the building. But finally, in 2001, the Waverly was sold to Tina and Charles Mattingly, who were the owners that the building needed. They began the massive task of restoring the windows and the interior, stabilize the shell, removed the asbestos insulation, and in 2007 they replaced the entire roof. To afford the renovations, they opened the Waverly up for tours and a haunted house attraction each Halloween, which is a brilliant idea. Why pay to make a new house look creepy when you could just use a preexisting one? With the efforts of the Mattingly’s, Waverly Hills was added to the National Historic Register and a non-profit organization, the Waverly Hills Historical Society was formed in 2003 to save the building. Ultimately, the goal of the Society is to completely fix and restore Waverly Hills and turn it into a destination hotel and museum, which will enable it to educate the public of the devastating effect Tuberculosis had on people of this time period, and just how many lives were lost or forever altered in the massive building. The total cost of renovations are expected to cost around $45 million, but they have already made great improvements on the building in the years they have owned it. It seems that, through the efforts of those looking to keep history alive, the Waverly Hills Sanitorium, and its long, dark, and sordid history, will be around for a long time, reminding us of how far we have come. It reminds us of the dark corners of history, that we as human beings have fought perilous monsters which tried to destroy us from within, microscopic beings intent on destruction. But it also reminds us that time and time again, we have prevailed and survived, and that when faced with death, intelligence and science can truly save us, and keep hope alive.

Sources for the Story Portion: 

Research Topic - How Airborne Illness is Spread

Diseases and viruses that are transmitted as very small particles by air currents.

  • How do they spread?

The bacteria or viruses travel on dust particles or on respiratory droplets through the air and into people's mouths. The infected droplets come from a sick person coughing or sneezing. This means that you can get sick from someone, even if you have never been in the same room, or if you've only been in the same building. You don’t even have to inhale the droplets. They can just land in your eyes, nose and mouth. You're welcome. 

  • What illnesses are spread this way?

Tuberculosis, measles, and chickenpox

  • How can you prevent airborne germ transmission?

Frequent and thorough hand washing. Also don't share drinks or straws. Cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing to minimize droplets. 

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