St Albans Sanatorium - Haunted RoadTrip

St Albans Sanatorium is located in Fairlawn, Virginia.

Saint Albans Sanatorium is a historical facility that began life in 1892 as a Lutheran boys’ school. The school closed in 1911 and reopened in 1916 as an institution to treat the mentally ill. After the closing of medical facility in the 1990s, the facility has been open to paranormal investigators and the general public. Numerous television shows and paranormal celebrities have visited the confines of St. Albans and it is claimed to be one of the most active paranormal locations on the East Coast.

After the school was shut down, St. Albans reopened as a psychiatric infirmary in 1916. It was supposed to be a better alternative to the other asylums scattered throughout the United States. It boasted a rooftop garden, bowling alley, and even a small farm to treat its patients to a healthy dose of leisurely fun.

Sadly, conditions were not as idyllic as the masterminds behind the sanatorium envisioned. Vulnerable patients were subjected to cruel experimental treatments by their doctors. People were left permanently disabled or even killed by lobotomies or insulin-induced comas. Others were shocked via electroconvulsive therapy. Still others were completely wrapped, mummy-style, in towels drenched with ice-cold water or left to soak in a tub for days at a time during routine hydrotherapy sessions.

The sanatorium was also ill-equipped to deal with the thousands of patients that entered for treatment. By 1945, its staff-to-patient ratio was 48 to 6,509. The desperately small staff and inhumane living conditions led the building to witness further suicides within its already grim walls.

By the late 20th century, the sanatorium was on a steady decline. It finally closed in the 1990s. But, according to paranormal investigators and the occasional curious visitor, not every patient seems to have left the building.

St. Albans is supposedly among the most active paranormal locations on the East Coast. Given the number of wrongful deaths that occurred within, it’s easy to imagine why this would become a ghostly hangout spot. People report seeing bodied apparitions, shadowy figures, and levitating objects while exploring within these decrepit walls. Others claim to hear voices or even feel fleeting physical contact with unseen beings.

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