HGB Ep. 434 - Old Hospital on College Hill

Moment in Oddity - The Belchen Tunnel White Lady (Suggested by: John Michaels)

The Belchen Tunnel is a motorway tunnel in Switzerland that runs over 10,000 feet that links Eptingen with Hagendorf. The tunnel officially opened in 1966. For years, the Eptingen side of the tunnel has had rumors of a mysterious happening. A phantom hitchhiker walks the shoulder until a vehicle picks her up and then she disappears from the car when the car enters the Belchen Tunnel. They call her weisse Frau or the White Lady. She appears as an elderly woman all dressed in white. The first paper to report about these sightings was Blick on January 6, 1981. The police started logging dozens of calls reporting the mysterious woman. The most popular shared experience occurred on September 26, 1983. The White Lady was picked up by two female jurists in Eptingen. They described her as being middle-aged and pale. The two women said that they inquired if she was ill and she said that she was and then she told them something terrible was going to happen. One of the women spun around to ask more about that revelation and she discovered that the White Lady had disappeared. We're not sure if something dreadful did happen later. Was she remembering her passing perhaps? Did it happen in the tunnel? Whatever the case may be, the White Lady of the Belchen Tunnel, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Katharine Hepburn Born

In the month of May, on the 12th, in 1907, Katharine Hepburn was born. Hepburn was born and raised in New England and was brought up to be an independent thinker. And in the world of old Hollywood, she certainly was that. She broke the rules about glamour, rarely wearing make-up and sporting trousers. She was outspoken and strong-willed. Her acting career spanned 60 years and garnered her 12 Best Actress Oscar nominations, a record not broken until 2003 when Meryl Streep received her 13th nomination. Hepburn won three of those Oscars for the films Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), A Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). She didn't pick up any of the awards in person. Many thought of her as arrogant and self-absorbed because she refused to grant interviews, sign autographs or pose for pictures. Hepburn carried on a love affair with Spencer Tracy for 27 years. He refused to divorce his wife because he was Catholic, yet the couple lived together for years before his death. They made nine movies together. She only discussed the relationship after Tracy's widow died. Me:Stories of My Life was her candid autobiography that was published in 1991. Her last acting gig was in 1994. She died in 2003 at the age of 96.

Old Hospital on College Hill (Suggested by: MaryAnn Farley)

The Williamson Memorial Hospital was named for the town of Williamson in West Virginia. Most people know this location as the Old Hospital on College Hill. People were born here and they died here and remnants from the past are everywhere inside the dilapidated buildings. The property is set deep in the mystical West Virginian Appalachian Mountains overlooking the town. Entities of all sorts have been experienced here. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Old Hospital on College Hill!

Williamson is the county seat of Mingo County in West Virginia. The town sits along the Tug Fork River and was named for the man who originally owned the plot, Wallace J. Williamson. He founded the first bank and first hotel here. The town was incorporated in 1892 and began to grow with the founding of the rail yard here, which was built by the Norfolk and Western Railroad. This railroad would provide a means for transporting the coal that was pulled out of nearby coal mines. Coal mining is still one of the main industries of Williamson. The town is also the scene of the Hatfield-McCoy Marathon every June. The Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Festival takes place at the same time. And that is because Williamson is involved in that feud, which took place along the Tug Fork River.

The McCoy family came from the Kentucky side of the dispute, while the Hatfields were from West Virginia. These families descended from Joseph Hatfield and William McCoy. The feud began with the Civil War even though both families mainly fought for the Confederacy, except for Asa McCoy. When he was returning home after being wounded, he was ambushed and killed by Confederate guerillas lead by Jim Vance who was an uncle to Anse Hatfield, the leader of the Hatfield family at the time. Thirteen years later, land disputes started between the families. They also fought over moonshine territory. Several family members were killed on each side, many times these altercations left behind bullet-riddled bodies. The feud reached its peak with the New Year Massacre in 1888. Things finally settled down in 1901.  

There are ghosts connected to this feud. The Hatfield Cemetery in Sarah Ann, West Virginia is about 30 minutes from Williamson. Devil Anse Hatfield and his sons are buried here and their spirits are said to still be sticking around. On foggy nights, their spirits are said to rise from their graves and make their way down the mountain toward Island Creek, which is at the bottom. William Garrett was a well-known mountain preacher and he baptized the Hatfields in this very creek in 1911. It's said their spirits are heading to the creek to re-enact their baptisms. They then fade away. The Dils Cemetery is on the Kentucky side of the feud and was the first racially integrated cemetery in Eastern Kentucky. Randolph McCoy is buried here, he was the head of the family, along with his wife and a couple of their children. Shadow figures have been traveling between headstones and trees.

A hospital was built in downtown Williamson in 1918, but that structure burned down in the winter of 1926. No one died in the fire thankfully. A woman, Mrs. Leonard Chafin, on the third floor threw her newborn out of a window and a man on the street named Raymond Edwards caught the baby. A doctor and several nurses jumped to safety on a pile of mattresses. A new hospital, which would eventually be known as the Old Hospital on College Hill, opened March 3, 1928 at 728 Mullberry Street. Unlike the former hospital, this one was state-of-the-art and had 75 beds and 32 private patient rooms. The business owners of Williamson were the ones to fund the construction through the purchasing of bonds and the hospital had paid those bonds off by 1939. The hospital was four stories with a basement. The fourth floor had the pharmacy, the third floor had medical and surgical rooms, the second floor had the maternity ward, the first floor featured the ICU and the basement had a cafeteria, lab, radiology department and emergency room. And there were incinerators located here as well for dispatching of bodies and body parts from amputations. In 2020, ashes left from that were still in the building. 

Eventually, it was more practical for the emergency room to move to the street level and this place saw a lot of action. There were nearby coal mining operations and accidents occurred occasionally. One of those accidents from the Williamson Coalfield took place at the Cinderella Mine owned by the Sycamore Coal Company. This mine opened in March of 1911 and became one of the largest mine operations. On June 30, 1914 a mine fire at Cinderella suffocated five miners to death: George Seibold, James Collins, Benjamin James, Henry Lyons, and Marion Lyons. Twenty other men made it to the surface. Rescuers worked feverishly for hours digging a rescue shaft. An explosion at Burning Springs Mine in 1951 killed eleven miners.

The Norfolk & Western Railway was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia and started in 1838. The coal train was nicknamed King Coal, but it wasn't just coal that was carried on the trains. There were passenger trains as well. Four passenger trains in each direction stopped at Williamson station every day in 1957. The last passenger trains left Williamson in 1971. On January 23rd 1956, a Norfolk & Western Passenger Train named The Pocahontas derailed and crashed in South-Eastern Mingo County. The engineer was killed, nine passengers were hospitalized and 14 others were injured with more minor issues. Those 23 individuals who were hurt in the crash were brought to Williamson Memorial Hospital. 

Violent injuries from the Matewan Massacre were brought to Williamson Memorial on May 19, 1920. The miners working under the Stone Mountain Coal Company tried to organize and the company hired enforcers from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict miners and their families. A gun fight followed some of the evictions and which side fired first is not known. What is known is that the sheriff, Sid Hatfield, shot lead detective Albert Felts. This was after Mayor Cabell Testerman was wounded by either Felts or Hatfield - no one knows the answer to that either. But Hatfield did marry Testerman's widow twelve days after Testerman died. And the day before that marriage, they were caught in a hotel room and charged with improper relations. Anyway, the gunfight continued between miners and detectives. Seven of the detectives were killed and two miners were killed. Many others were wounded.

*Fun Fact: A Dr. Salton had a horse that he really loved and it became sick and needed emergency surgery. He brought it to the hospital, walked it in and loaded it into the elevator. They then went up to the fourth floor. Staff on the third floor heard the clopping of horse hooves and thought they were hearing something quite strange, but later discovered that there was indeed a horse up on the fourth floor undergoing surgery. We're not sure how the horse fared.*

In 1979, the facility was sold to Hospital Managements Association, Inc. and continued to operate until 1988. Then it was closed after 60 years of service because a more modern facility was opened up the street. The building was converted to physician offices and was used for that purpose until 2014. Then the hospital was used for storage. As nature began to take back the building, wrapping it with vines, and the infrastructure began to crumble, the building took on a real creepy mystique. Rumors of hauntings had plagued it through the years. So it seemed fitting that it was decided to host paranormal tours during the Halloween season. Williamson Memorial Hospital partnered with the Tug Valley Area CVB to conduct those tours in 2018 and 2019. There was a real treat for tourists after several of the tours in 2019 when actor Tony Moran, who played the original Michael Myers in John Carpenter's 1978 Film "Halloween" was there to greet them. Thousands came for the tours. 

In November 2020, the facility was purchased by Tonya Webb, a Mingo County Chief Probation Officer, and businesswoman Sabrina Hatfield. Hatfield, unfortunately, died on February 28, 2021 from cancer. Her husband, Charlie Hatfield, is the mayor of Williamson. Webb has been nicknamed the "Queen of Halloween" in the town. She was born at the hospital and two of her grandparents died here. Their goal is to restore the buildings and make this a tourist destination. In 2021, the facility was reopened to the public as a host to both paranormal and historic tour opportunities. There is much unexplained activity reported here.

Residents of Williamson have often seen lights turning on and off in the building when it is empty. They also claim to see people staring out of the windows and shadow figures pass by windows. The Williamson Police Department had been called out repeatedly when the building was abandoned and they would never find anyone inside and no signs of a break-ins. The apparition of a female spirit has been seen floating in the basement between the two x-ray rooms at the end of the hall and an EVP was captured down there in 2018 saying "Help me!" An employee was down in the basement, she looked over her left shoulder and saw a face sticking out of the wall. It made her cry and she looked to be a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, so it really must have scared her. She hasn't returned to the basement since and says she won't return. Others claim to have seen this face in the wall as well. 

The mayor, Charlie Hatfield, had been on the property many times with his wife and he experienced some unexplained stuff. He was working by himself on a window when he clearly heard voices. Charlie looked around and no one was near him. On another occasion, he and a friend named Wes were working on a window in the basement and they heard a door close abruptly. There was no breeze or wind, so they couldn't explain how that happened. They left quickly. Tonya Webb was checking the building one night after an investigation and she heard a male voice say, "Hey!" loudly. It startled her and was so clear that she went looking for the person. She was alone in the building.

The apparition of a nurse has been seen as though she is still doing her rounds and it is thought that she is a nurse who died in the hospital either during one of her shifts or in the operating room on the fourth floor after being involved in a car accident on her way to work. Before the hospital closed, a woman had a run-in with this nurse. She had just given birth and was resting in a room, looking forward to seeing her baby. A nurse came in and told her she could go home and that she wouldn't be able to see her baby until the next day. So the woman dressed and headed for the door when another nurse ran up to her and asked where she was going. She responded, "The nurse told me to leave." This nurse looked at her strangely and said, "What nurse? I’m the only nurse on the floor today." For years, doctors and nurses reported seeing this ghostly nurse. A contractor saw her on the fourth floor when he was doing renovations. He claimed to see her glide down the corridor. He ran after he to find out who she was and she had just disappeared. There were no exit doors she could have gone out. He refused to return to the fourth floor. This nurse has been photographed. One of the pictures was taken by a woman named Sheena Daniels on one of the tours on Halloween night in 2018. We'll share that picture on Instagram.

Many ghost stories originate from the time when this was a working hospital, but even more came out starting in 2018 when paranormal tours started. During one of those tours, the elevator did something strange. This elevator is the oldest in operation in Mingo County. Visitors were transported to floors that were open for the tour. A couple of the floors were locked and were not to be accessed. The elevator stopped on those locked floors without the button being pushed. There was no one on those floors to call the elevator and again, they were locked. The elevator has windows and these closed floors should've been dark, but the lights were on and some people saw shadow figures. One tour guide got ill while giving tours, many days in a row, whenever they entered the left X-ray Room. The flashlight batteries would die in this room as well. A medium later informed the crew that the spirit of a man was behind the X-ray control panel and didn't want anyone in that room. Many believe that it is his face that people see in the wall. And he definitely gives off an unfriendly vibe.

There are moans heard on the third floor and a shadow figure. Many people believe this is the spirit of Mose Blackburn. The story behind this starts in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, July 21, 1962. Mose and Ora Blackburn owned a restaurant on Pike Street and they got in a domestic dispute there. The police were called and the first to arrive were Lt. Garnet Richmond and Patrolman Howard Hatfield. As we all know, these kinds of calls are the worst for police. They found the couple sitting in two separate cars outside of the restaurant and so they approached the vehicles to find out what happened. They both headed towards the vehicle holding Mose Blackburn first. They had no idea that Mose had a .22 pistol sitting in his lap. Mose picked up his gun and aimed it at his windshield and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Lt. Richmond below the left eye. Hatfield dove to the ground and called for back-up. He them exchanged fire with Blackburn and around 20 bullets were fired in the gun battle. Mose was struck once in the arm. He was subdued after more officers showed up.  

Both Richmond and Blackburn were taken to Williamson Memorial Hospital, but the officer was declared dead when he got there. Blackburn was treated for his gunshot wound and spent several days in the hospital under armed guard. He was a cop killer and his arraignment would be in a week. Lt. Richmond had been a veteran of World War II and he left behind a pregnant wife, two daughters and a step-daughter. The two deputies who took turns watching him were Enoch Fillinger and Morrie Blair. On the evening of July 29th, Mose complained about being thirsty and Deputy Fillinger went to the nurse's station to get him some water. Once he left his sentry, the story goes that Mose took off running down the third floor hall towards a window and he leapt out that window. The fall didn't kill him, but it broke him up pretty badly. Mose broke his femur, fractured his mandible and had multiple contusions. He eventually died on August 24, 1962. His death certificate lists "empyema" as the cause of death. This is a malady where pus builds up in the area between the lungs and inner chest wall. Mose had this condition due to a fractured rib from his fall. Mose was buried in Davis Memorial Gardens in Stone, Kentucky. 

Many wonder if Mose did indeed jump out that window of his own accord. Could he have been pushed? The police surely would've wanted retaliation for losing one of their own. But he didn't jump out of the window in his room, so its possible a nurse or another patient would have seen him being thrown out of a window by someone else. But this also begs the question, why would he run down the hall to jump out a window when he had one in his room? Mose had told his nurses that he was afraid for his life and that he was having horrible nightmares. Was he being haunted by his victim? Was he just afraid of facing the electric chair? What made him run in terror out a window?

Destination Fear was the first investigative team allowed to overnight at the Old Hospital. They did this in 2020. Their visit was fairly uneventful. There were strange sounds heard on each floor as each member spent an hour alone in the building. Dakota and his sister Chelsea were awakened from sleep by the sound of broken glass and Dakota did find broken glass on the floor in one of the rooms. The Ovilus did give the word "malevolent" once too. Many people believe that something dark is in the building. Was this the entity letting itself be known. It certainly had no interest in talking to the group. The only EVP picked up seemed to be an angry, growling type of voice.

Spectral Research and Investigation team, SRI, visited and they spent much of their time trying to communicate with Mose. They got some interaction using the Ovilus. They described it as "communication was brief and abruptly stopped after only a short time, but not before we were able to establish that Mose seemed to feel at least some level of remorse for what he had done, but also felt that he was a victim too." Paranormal Quest investigated the hospital in the Spring of 2021 and on the Mose floor, one of the investigators felt something pass by him several times. Several pieces of equipment were activated in the hallway that was Mose's route as well. One cool thing they rigged up was a REM Pod attached to an IV rack, so if anything touched the IV rack, the REM Pod went off. That happened a couple of times for a lengthy period of time.

The Old Hospital was no stranger to birth and death. Does the afterlife have a place here too? Is the Old Hospital on College Hill haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

Paranormal Quest video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV9OilJF5mQ