All of the best hauntings happen in a place high up on a hill—like this 100-year-old hospital in Williamson.
Tonya Webb took her first breath on the second floor of Williamson Memorial Hospital. Decades later, she walks the hospital’s hallways, no longer filled with the sound of loved ones’ final goodbyes and the wailing of new life, but rather, chilled by the presence of lingering spirits and abandoned medical equipment. She’s not there on a dare—she owns the Old Hospital on College Hill.
Locals call the hospital “The Old Gray Lady” in the same way a southern gentleman might call his beloved wife his “old lady.” It’s a term of endearment, says Webb. But residents aren’t the only ones to feel a connection to this place where human life began, healed, and ended for nearly 100 years. Since it reopened in 2021 as a paranormal and historical attraction, it’s welcomed thousands of locals and international visitors alike to tour its halls and learn its history—and try to solve its surviving mysteries.
“I’ve always believed that spirits still have stories to tell,” says Webb. “To walk back into the hospital for the first time and go on the floor that I was born on, and that’s where I had my very first paranormal experience—I don’t think that’s a coincidence at all.”
Webb leads a majority of the tours herself, so she’s something of an expert on the hospital’s history and the spirits who linger there. Each floor has a different energy, but Webb says the basement’s is the darkest. That’s due to its complex history: It’s been an emergency room, a temporary morgue, a radiology department, and finally a pediatric ward. If Webb doesn’t feel welcome in an area, she respects the spirits’ wishes and comes back later. She thinks The Old Gray Lady is owed that respect.
It’s an undeniable pillar of the town’s history, and its transformation into a tourism destination has allowed that history to continue and extend far beyond West Virginia’s borders. It was featured on Travel Channel in 2020, and Forbes named it one of the most haunted places in America in 2022, drawing paranormal enthusiasts and investigators from all over the world.
“It’s uncommon to find a 98-year-old hospital that has seen what The Old Gray Lady has seen,” says Webb. “It’s a very special building, and to be able to preserve it and tell its stories 98 years later—that’s just really special for Williamson and West Virginia.”
728 Mullberry Street, Williamson, collegehillhospital.com, @collegehillhospital on FB
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