Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. Recently,
Speaker 1: I found myself wandering the dark halls of an abandoned hospital,
Speaker 1: as one does in my line of work. In this
Speaker 1: particular moment, I was standing in the basement of said hospital,
Speaker 1: and it was pitch black. I wasn't quite aware of
Speaker 1: my surroundings or what was in front of me, but
Speaker 1: I began to hear a tapping sound. Eventually, the tap
Speaker 1: turned louder, and soon it became a loud banging or crashing.
Speaker 1: Convinced an animal, or worse, an intruder had entered the building,
Speaker 1: I turned on my flashlight and headed toward the sound.
Speaker 1: Except when I turned the corner where the sound was
Speaker 1: emanating from, there was nothing there, nothing that could make
Speaker 1: that sound, and yet it was still happening directly in
Speaker 1: front of me. I must admit, if I was alone,
Speaker 1: there's a chance I would have quickly exited the building.
Speaker 1: But I did have someone with me, and my pride
Speaker 1: was on the line, so I continued toward the sound.
Speaker 1: When it suddenly stopped with no explanation, we searched high
Speaker 1: and low for anything in that empty space that could
Speaker 1: have made such a ruck as and we came up empty.
Speaker 1: Little did I know this was a common occurrence in
Speaker 1: this building. And what I also didn't realize was I
Speaker 1: was standing right behind the hospital's former morgue. So join me, friends,
Speaker 1: as we had to Wisconsin and visit the Sheboygan County Asylum.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brunei, and this is haunted road. To fully
Speaker 1: understand the hauntings, rumors, and confusion regarding the history at
Speaker 1: the Sheboygan County Asylum, or what was officially known as
Speaker 1: the Sheboygan County Comprehensive Healthcare Center when it closed, you
Speaker 1: have to go back to its roots. Sheboygan Asylum refers
Speaker 1: to three different structures between eighteen seventy six and two
Speaker 1: thousand two. The Sheboygan County Hospital for the Insane was
Speaker 1: a former lunatic asylum serving Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. Opened in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six in Winowski. It was replaced in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty two with a larger facility in Sheboygan, which underwent
Speaker 1: several expansions before closing in nineteen forty. It was succeeded
Speaker 1: by Sheboygan County Comprehensive health Care Center in Sheboygan Falls,
Speaker 1: which operated until two thousand two. These three operations are
Speaker 1: regularly confused in research and tragedies. History that occurred in
Speaker 1: the first two incarnations are often times confused with the
Speaker 1: still standing, though not in use, healthcare center in Sheboygan. Regardless,
Speaker 1: the history of each is interesting, so let's go through
Speaker 1: each iteration to fully understand why the Comprehensive Healthcare Center
Speaker 1: came to be and what actually happened within its walls.
Speaker 1: Before the original A. Winowski Asylum opened in June eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, the chronically insane, as they were called, had
Speaker 1: previously been housed in the state hospital and the jail.
Speaker 1: In its earliest years, the Sheboygan Asylum was under the
Speaker 1: direction of Glanville Jewett, who had about twenty two people
Speaker 1: under his care. On February nineteenth, eighteen seventy eight, a
Speaker 1: fire broke out in his facility, killing four of the
Speaker 1: seventeen patients under Jewett's care at the time. An account
Speaker 1: in the Oshkosh, Northwestern States the building was of wood,
Speaker 1: erected by Mr Jewett about two years ago expressly for
Speaker 1: the purpose, and situated but a few meters from his residence.
Speaker 1: There were eighteen inmates at the time, all of whom
Speaker 1: had been locked in their cells for the night as usual,
Speaker 1: at which time everything was right so far as could
Speaker 1: be seen. At twenty minutes before twelve o'clock, an alarm
Speaker 1: was raised by Lucretia Toothaker, an old lady, one of
Speaker 1: the incurable insane, brought from Oshkosh last summer. On hearing it,
Speaker 1: Mr Jewett arose and it once proceeded to learn the cause.
Speaker 1: Arriving at the building, he opened the door of the
Speaker 1: furnace room in the basement and found it full of
Speaker 1: dense smoke, and at once a bright flame dashed out
Speaker 1: from the ceiling overhead and spread rapidly across the room.
Speaker 1: Using buckets of water, people on the scene tried to
Speaker 1: tame the fire and rescue everyone inside. The cells were
Speaker 1: quickly unlocked by Mr Jewett, who, with the aid of
Speaker 1: two or three others who had arrived, got them out
Speaker 1: with as much haste as possible, many of them having
Speaker 1: to be carried out nearly suffocated with smoke. On the
Speaker 1: cause of the fire, Mr Jewett says there had been
Speaker 1: no fire in the furnace since three o'clock the day before,
Speaker 1: and he thinks the fire to have originated from the
Speaker 1: ashes of a pipe laid upon a projection of a
Speaker 1: beam near the floor overhead, that is again from the
Speaker 1: Oshkosh Northwestern Afterwards, survivors were all cared for in Jewett's
Speaker 1: own house and other buildings in the neighborhood. He proposed
Speaker 1: to erect a new building again as fast as it
Speaker 1: could be done. Unfortunately, he never saw that plan through
Speaker 1: because that April Jewett passed away from injuries sustained in
Speaker 1: the fire. After Mr. Jewett's death, a plan was formed
Speaker 1: by the county board to move the asylum closer to
Speaker 1: the city of Sheboygan. In eighteen eighty one, the county
Speaker 1: purchased nineteen acres located just west of today's voll Wrath
Speaker 1: Company Grounds, bordered by Superior and Erie Avenues. During construction,
Speaker 1: the patients were kept in neighboring homes. The building contract
Speaker 1: was let and the new building was completed and furnished
Speaker 1: by June one, eighteen eighty two. The committee then employed A. J.
Speaker 1: Whiffen and his wife as superintendent and matron, respectively, of
Speaker 1: the institution. On June seventh, the building was opened to
Speaker 1: forty inmates, being all those kept at Winowski and twenty
Speaker 1: others transferred from the Northern Hospital. When this second iteration
Speaker 1: opened in eighteen eighty two, it was called the County Hospital,
Speaker 1: but became known as the Asylum. It also served as
Speaker 1: a poorhouse the following year. In eighteen eighty three, an
Speaker 1: addition increased the building's capacity from forty to ninety, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six twenty acres of additional land were purchased,
Speaker 1: and two years later the number of patients increased so
Speaker 1: rapidly that another edition was authorized and built. On December
Speaker 1: twenty nine, fire once again reared its ugly head and
Speaker 1: claimed the life of the night watchman who discovered it.
Speaker 1: According to reports, the County Insane Asylum was damaged by
Speaker 1: a fire that started in the washroom about one o'clock.
Speaker 1: Chester Carver, the night watchman, aged sixty years, was suffocated
Speaker 1: and Superintendent A. J. Whiffen was seriously injured in trying
Speaker 1: to save Carver. Sounds eerily reminiscent of the building before. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the asylum campus grew. It didn't take long for the
Speaker 1: news structure to fill. In eighteen twenty more acres were added,
Speaker 1: and thereafter the number of patients continued to increase from
Speaker 1: year to year. In nineteen o five, the County Board
Speaker 1: purchased the Tailor Farm, consisting of two hundred fifty acres,
Speaker 1: together with the buildings on the property, and arranged for
Speaker 1: the addition of more room at the institution. It farmed
Speaker 1: its land to feed and employ the inmates. By nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: after further expansions and the acquisition of an adjacent farm
Speaker 1: through a bond issue, it stood on three hundred nine
Speaker 1: acres and had a capacity of two hundred twenty five inmates.
Speaker 1: A name that is familiar to even the current building
Speaker 1: entered the picture on March first, nineteen ten. That is
Speaker 1: when the Whiffins stepped back from the asylum and the
Speaker 1: r Key family stepped in. Dr Herman r Key entered
Speaker 1: the role of superintendent and his wife acted as matron
Speaker 1: at the institution. Herman ran the hospital until his death
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty. His son, Mr Harold as Happy r
Speaker 1: Key was appointed to head the County Mental Institution in
Speaker 1: June of nineteen thirty. Between nineteen twenty five and the
Speaker 1: forty there were discussions about a land swap between the
Speaker 1: asylum and the mission House College in the town of Hermon.
Speaker 1: The large amount of acreage was thought to impeed the
Speaker 1: westward growth of the city. Although initially excited about becoming
Speaker 1: a college town, the ideal lost momentum and then failed.
Speaker 1: About the same time, another blow was dealt to the institution.
Speaker 1: A former resident of the asylum spoke out about insufficient
Speaker 1: food during his stay. The accusations were refuted and proven falls,
Speaker 1: but the facility ended up closing to patients in nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: When the facility closed, a new facility had been built
Speaker 1: at five Corners in the town of Lima, which the
Speaker 1: Archies continued to oversee. Before we get to the new facility,
Speaker 1: there's one more bit of interesting history attached to this one.
Speaker 1: In the spring of nineteen forty two, when things looked
Speaker 1: especially grim for Allies, it was rumored that Adolf Hitler
Speaker 1: planned an air drop of weapons to his soldiers held
Speaker 1: prisoner at detention camps in England. That very real fear
Speaker 1: led to the United States agreeing to take charge of
Speaker 1: prisoners captured by the Brits. After nineteen forty two, thousands
Speaker 1: of prisoners of war were brought to the United States
Speaker 1: and housed for the duration of World War Two. The
Speaker 1: old abandoned Sheboygan County Asylum had been selected to house
Speaker 1: the POWs. While it could easily accommodate the expected five
Speaker 1: hundred fifty prisoners, the maximum number housed in the three
Speaker 1: story brick building never exceeded four hundred fifty. The prisoners
Speaker 1: were accommodated in the asylum itself. By nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: there were disastrous labor shortages in the United States, and
Speaker 1: because of its tremendous agricultural needs, Wisconsin would have suffered
Speaker 1: greatly had it not been for the Pow labor program.
Speaker 1: Camps were located close to farm fields that needed working
Speaker 1: or factories in need of a labor force. The POWs
Speaker 1: were not required to work, but boredom and the ability
Speaker 1: to earn money or coupons for the canteen motivated them
Speaker 1: to volunteer for almost any job available. Prisoners were paid
Speaker 1: an equivalent of eighty cents per day, not in cash,
Speaker 1: but in canteen coupons, which they could spend for cigarettes, candy,
Speaker 1: and beer. When the war ended in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: the POWs were free to leave, but the majority of
Speaker 1: German prisoners continued working in the United States until nineteen Finally,
Speaker 1: the dilapidated structures that were once the Sheboygan County Asylum
Speaker 1: were torn down in the nineteen sixties, and the plot
Speaker 1: has since been developed into residential neighborhoods, the Sheboygan Clinic campus,
Speaker 1: and Pick and Save grocery store. So Pick and Save
Speaker 1: if you're listening, I am happy to come investigate if
Speaker 1: anything weird is going on there. The new hospital, then
Speaker 1: dubbed the Sheboygan County Hospital for the Insane, was built
Speaker 1: and opened by nineteen thirty nine. There was a dedication
Speaker 1: ceremony for the new facility held in early October nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine. While more than one thousand person's watched, County
Speaker 1: Judge F. H. Schlichting Sunday afternoon tapped mortar around the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of the new County Hospital for the Insane, now
Speaker 1: nearing completion in the town of Lima. A copper box
Speaker 1: containing pictures, coins, several issues of the Sheboygan Press, and
Speaker 1: other items was sealed into the cornerstone by mortar wielded
Speaker 1: from Judge Slichtings Trout. The judge addressed the crowd. It
Speaker 1: is a source of great pride for all our citizens
Speaker 1: that we are here today to lay the cornerstone of
Speaker 1: another great institution. This mark is one or more mark
Speaker 1: of progress in the history of this great Sheboygan County.
Speaker 1: This great step forward is being taken to alleviate human suffering.
Speaker 1: He continued. These fine modern buildings which are being erected
Speaker 1: here are further evidence of the progressive, constructive attitude of
Speaker 1: the people of this county. Sheboygan County never retreats. It
Speaker 1: goes steadily forward, discarding the old and taking on the new,
Speaker 1: whenever it is merited and proven to be the benefit
Speaker 1: of its people. This is from the Sheboygan Press. Schlichting explained,
Speaker 1: this is a new era. No longer do we put
Speaker 1: people away in an insane asylum. We now commit those
Speaker 1: afflicted as understanding fellow citizens to hospitals for the treatment
Speaker 1: of mental diseases. No longer is insanity considered an affliction
Speaker 1: about which nothing can be done. Rather, we now consider
Speaker 1: it as a disease, just as is cancer, tuberculosis, or
Speaker 1: any other physical ailment, and amenable to treatment. Right here
Speaker 1: in this hospital we are having such fine facilities for
Speaker 1: this purpose of hydrotherapy units which are recognized as essential
Speaker 1: for treatment of mental diseases, but which are not now
Speaker 1: and never have been in our institution. Full hospital facilities,
Speaker 1: including operating rooms and the like, will be a part
Speaker 1: of this building, and provisions are being made for a
Speaker 1: full time trained nurse. The nineteen forty construction covers over
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand square feet assists of tunnels runs underneath it.
Speaker 1: This new facility brought many features to patients, including a
Speaker 1: recreation room, dental office, cafeteria, and courtyard. It was also
Speaker 1: touted that the new building was being constructed so that
Speaker 1: each and every room would have sunlight at some point
Speaker 1: during the day. For almost a decade, between nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine and nineteen seventy eight, the facility became an acute
Speaker 1: care service for the mentally ill, and for some of
Speaker 1: that time also offered rehabilitation services for various addictions. After
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, county officials discontinued the mentally ill services
Speaker 1: and the facility became a home for the developmentally disabled
Speaker 1: and chronically ill. Between nineteen eighty eight and two thousand two,
Speaker 1: the facility slowly closed down and transferred patients as it went.
Speaker 1: As of two The Sheboygan County Asylum still stands, but
Speaker 1: is now privately owned and mostly closed to the public.
Speaker 1: It's widely alleged that the medical building is haunted, partly
Speaker 1: because it is so often confused with the original asylums.
Speaker 1: But while yes, the health care center did not have
Speaker 1: any fires or German POWs on site, it has seen
Speaker 1: its fair share of death and tragedy. Before I go
Speaker 1: into this, it's important to note that local residents were
Speaker 1: hugely supportive of this facility. It was home to many
Speaker 1: of their loved ones who could not go elsewhere. I
Speaker 1: have interviewed as staff members, and it is widely looked
Speaker 1: at as a positive place with no history of abuse
Speaker 1: or neglect. But the nature of the hospital itself means
Speaker 1: that yes, many people died on site, hundreds of them actually,
Speaker 1: many of natural causes old age or terminal illness. One
Speaker 1: of the rumors that persists is that multiple nurses took
Speaker 1: their own lives in the structure. I was able to
Speaker 1: find record of two staff members who died by suicide
Speaker 1: on site. One was a janitor who died of a
Speaker 1: self inflicted gunshot wound in nineteen sixty five. The other
Speaker 1: was a woman who in nineteen sixty seven suffocated herself
Speaker 1: by putting a plastic bag over her head, and she
Speaker 1: was later found in her bed by co workers. Sadly,
Speaker 1: being a mental health facility, there were also occasional suicides
Speaker 1: within the patient population. In nineteen sixty three, a patient
Speaker 1: hanged herself from a window handle in her room, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, in full view of other patients
Speaker 1: looking out their windows, a patient jumped from a water
Speaker 1: tower while trying to be talked down by multiple employees.
Speaker 1: The gentleman had been in the care of the institution
Speaker 1: for thirty seven years. Now keep in mind these are
Speaker 1: only the debts I could find record of in newspapers.
Speaker 1: It stands to reason there were many not made public.
Speaker 1: As far as paranormal activity goes, reports are rampant. Visitors
Speaker 1: report a tall entity in the tunnels, They hear footsteps
Speaker 1: in the halls, and multiple shadow figures are seen in
Speaker 1: the corridors. Old bangs and slams come from areas where
Speaker 1: there are no doors to slam, and guests report being
Speaker 1: touched or having their hair pold, and it's not uncommon
Speaker 1: to hear screams or talking coming from empty halls and
Speaker 1: rooms as evidence. In the beginning of this episode, I
Speaker 1: can definitely vouch for these slamming phenomenon. To talk about
Speaker 1: the paranormal activity on site and what the future holds
Speaker 1: for the Sheboygan County Asylum, we will be talking to
Speaker 1: Craig Nearing. He is the founder of Fox Valley ghost
Speaker 1: Hunters and investigates the hospital regularly. He's got some interesting
Speaker 1: insight and some wild experiences to share, so that is
Speaker 1: coming up next. I am sitting here with Craig Nearing,
Speaker 1: who is the founder of Fox Valley ghost Hunters, and
Speaker 1: he is very closely affiliated with the asylum it's health.
Speaker 1: What I have not mentioned yet is the fact that
Speaker 1: the asylum is actually featured on season six of Kindred Spirits,
Speaker 1: So depending on when you're listening, it has not aired
Speaker 1: as of this recording, but it is the season six
Speaker 1: finale of Kindred Spirits. So Craig is our client on
Speaker 1: the show, so we got to know each other that way,
Speaker 1: and he's just a wealth of information as far as
Speaker 1: the asylum itself and the activity that goes on there.
Speaker 1: So welcome Craig, Thank you for having me. Of course,
Speaker 1: happy to have you. It's been a few months since
Speaker 1: I visited. I don't want to give away too many
Speaker 1: spoilers as far as the episode goes, just in case
Speaker 1: people haven't seen it yet, but I would say that
Speaker 1: our experiences at the Asylum and kind of our outcome there,
Speaker 1: we're very different from what we've seen in the past,
Speaker 1: and I think a large part of that was that
Speaker 1: it was a location that was just so focused on
Speaker 1: healing and fixing and kind of a had of its
Speaker 1: time really when it opened, as far as seeing you know,
Speaker 1: mental health as being something that was treatable and not
Speaker 1: something to just lock someone away for forever. So that
Speaker 1: being said, what got you so closely involved in the
Speaker 1: asylum itself, Well, it was a place that most of
Speaker 1: my paramormal team always wanted to visit or get involved in,
Speaker 1: and it was very hard to get into. The owner
Speaker 1: didn't allow other teams or anybody to ever come out
Speaker 1: and investigate there. And it just so happened that the
Speaker 1: owner knows my brother, and my brother is a really
Speaker 1: good businessman, and he says, anybody that's in the business
Speaker 1: like that, he goes, I'd love to talk to their brother.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of the starting point for giving
Speaker 1: stepping foot into the asylum and being able to investigate there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do find that some of these relationships with property
Speaker 1: owners and things, it's it's very organic. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of these buildings that we see and we want to
Speaker 1: get in there so badly because we know the history
Speaker 1: and we know rumors of it being haunted. And many
Speaker 1: times it's just about kind of meeting the right person
Speaker 1: or you know, fostering up friendship or something along those
Speaker 1: lines is how it eventually happens. And we did meet
Speaker 1: him and he seemed very open at this point, so
Speaker 1: well done on that. Yeah, thank you. He's an interesting individual,
Speaker 1: because I mean, anybody who purchases a building like that
Speaker 1: has to be an interesting person, I would say, and
Speaker 1: he is. He seems like he's a collector. He's got
Speaker 1: a lot of antiques in there. Um, he's renovating certain
Speaker 1: areas of it. He's got very big plans for it,
Speaker 1: which I think is really cool. But with all that
Speaker 1: going on, do you think that that kind of does
Speaker 1: anything to the activity. I would think so anybody that
Speaker 1: would bring antiques or you know, old items in there,
Speaker 1: even things related to hospitals and asylums and stuff like
Speaker 1: that would definitely have things that could be attached to
Speaker 1: that stuff even coming in. Yeah, and I felt like
Speaker 1: while we you know, we really did investigate quite a
Speaker 1: bit there, and I could have done on an entire
Speaker 1: other episode on just the items themselves, because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of historic artifacts in there. But that being said,
Speaker 1: everyone it is under lock and key. That places very
Speaker 1: heavily surveillanced, surveilled, whatever the word would be, and there
Speaker 1: are people on site, so it is tempting. I think
Speaker 1: these big old buildings, I think people assume there's no
Speaker 1: one there, but in this case there are people very
Speaker 1: much there and cameras everywhere, so be aware of that
Speaker 1: kind of just getting into the activity. Aside from even
Speaker 1: all of the items that are there. If you visit
Speaker 1: the asylum, what can you expect to experience? Would you say,
Speaker 1: Like I tell people, when we don't pay our ghosts,
Speaker 1: they're not on the payroll. We're very respectful to ghosts
Speaker 1: as far as they were once people too, so we
Speaker 1: don't do any provoking. We treat them like you would
Speaker 1: treat a normal human being with respect. But people coming
Speaker 1: into the asylum for tours and events and us in general,
Speaker 1: we've had our hair pulled. I've had things touched me
Speaker 1: on the shoulder, disembodied voices. A lot of times you'll
Speaker 1: hear a little girl that likes to sing in the hallway.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you'll even hear her humming. Dark shadows that moved
Speaker 1: between the doorways and stuff, especially if you're looking down
Speaker 1: some of the long corridors and always with the patients rooms,
Speaker 1: you can sometimes see the like shadows pop in and out,
Speaker 1: or even see a possibility of a head that pops
Speaker 1: out of a room to speak around the corner. Many
Speaker 1: of our guests I've seen that, Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: I found in particular kind of that basement area. We
Speaker 1: had some very crazy experiences there, but that was the
Speaker 1: area for me that seemed the most active. It's kind
Speaker 1: of where you go down to where the org once
Speaker 1: wasn't you go around the corner and up this hallway
Speaker 1: to where the chapel is and everything is that kind
Speaker 1: of the norm. Is that usually kind of the most
Speaker 1: active place for people. Yeah, it seems to be a
Speaker 1: lot of the hotspots seem to be in the basement.
Speaker 1: A lot of running and screaming with guests down there too.
Speaker 1: Even in the tunnels. It's just you get some really
Speaker 1: cold spots that just like come out of nowhere, and
Speaker 1: it's a warm summer day and you can definitely seem
Speaker 1: like something is definitely around you at the time, and
Speaker 1: it's footsteps down there and a lot of interesting things
Speaker 1: in the basement. This is something I don't really talk
Speaker 1: about that often because it's slightly embarrassing, but you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes when we are doing these kind of investigations in
Speaker 1: larger locations. You know, years ago, when I was on
Speaker 1: the show Ghost Hunters, there were six or seven of
Speaker 1: us at a time setting up equipment, and now it's
Speaker 1: just Adam and me on Kindred Spirits doing the equipment portion,
Speaker 1: which I don't think we really thought out, you know.
Speaker 1: But that being said, I do find, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: I have to venture off on my own to go
Speaker 1: get like a camera or you know, a piece of
Speaker 1: equipment we left, and there was a point where I
Speaker 1: did have to go down into that basement by myself,
Speaker 1: and there's this whole other like tunnel section. There's there's
Speaker 1: many tunnels, and I'm already terrified of tunnels. I hate
Speaker 1: being underground, and so I do remember walking through that
Speaker 1: tunnel at some point alone when I do that, and
Speaker 1: I start feeling anxious or aunt say, or you know,
Speaker 1: I get that kind of feeling like I'm not alone.
Speaker 1: I always whistle because I feel like nothing bad can
Speaker 1: happen if you're whistling, right. But I was whistling through
Speaker 1: that tunnel and I walked through and I was by myself,
Speaker 1: just walking, and I do think this has happened on
Speaker 1: the show as well. But the lights started turning on
Speaker 1: and off and I'm down there all by myself, and
Speaker 1: I think if I had not been faced with situation
Speaker 1: is like this many times over the years, Like if
Speaker 1: I was kind of like a new but newbie, I
Speaker 1: probably would have run screaming out of that building. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that lights an issue. It happened to me once too,
Speaker 1: and I talked to the owner bout and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's never done that before, so it's weird to happen
Speaker 1: once in the lobby. And then they also happened in
Speaker 1: the tunnel where this one light would like flicker and
Speaker 1: it was just a weird the way it flickered, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't some special bulb or anything. It was a
Speaker 1: normal bulb. But the owner said, yeah, that don't normally happen. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing too, is you know, it kind of
Speaker 1: coincided with me feeling like maybe I wasn't alone, which
Speaker 1: that could have just been my own paranoia, but that
Speaker 1: was one of those moments where I was like, jeez,
Speaker 1: if if under normal circumstances, I would probably have just
Speaker 1: like run out of here, but then I would have
Speaker 1: had to answer to Adam for like the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. So so now one of the things that's
Speaker 1: kind of hard when you're researching the asylum is like,
Speaker 1: so you call it the asylum because its original roots
Speaker 1: were the Sheboygan County Asylum. Now it's had like three
Speaker 1: iterations at this point. When it closed, it was the
Speaker 1: Comprehensive Health Care Center, which, as you and I have
Speaker 1: spoken with like not recording that if you leave that
Speaker 1: name kind of up, people think it is actually a
Speaker 1: place that you can take someone who's injured because they
Speaker 1: don't realize that it's closed. But I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: getting at is that going through trying to research was
Speaker 1: very difficult. I remember when we were filming there and
Speaker 1: I was researching, trying to go back through records because
Speaker 1: there are three different versions of basically the same place.
Speaker 1: A lot of that history and lore kind of gets
Speaker 1: crossed over and you know, mistaken for happening in that building.
Speaker 1: You know, things like the German POWs or the fires
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Has that ever posed a problem
Speaker 1: during your investigations or when people come in. Do you
Speaker 1: have to kind of correct investigators sometimes on the actual history. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of helpers, a lot of them
Speaker 1: are kind of in the darker, all confused about all
Speaker 1: the different things because, like you said, they carry over
Speaker 1: from one asylum to the next and everybody gets confused.
Speaker 1: The whole topic of the peel W's being over at
Speaker 1: our asylum isn't true. They were never were there. They
Speaker 1: were at the other asylum. However, the peel Ws were
Speaker 1: busted over to our asylum to harvest the fields for
Speaker 1: the food that were sometimes used for the people that
Speaker 1: were eating in the asylum. So they're busted over to
Speaker 1: the fields, but they never actually stayed in the asylum
Speaker 1: or lived there, like it says in some of the
Speaker 1: other outputs. Even Wikipedia has so many um wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: things listed for the asylum, including that it's two thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred fifty feet when it's actually two d seventy
Speaker 1: square feet, just a lot of indiscripancies. That is interesting
Speaker 1: in the sense that, you know, part of being a
Speaker 1: paranormal investigator, and I do say this a lot, is
Speaker 1: that obviously you can believe in ghosts or you cannot
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts, and that's fine, but it's really important
Speaker 1: to get the history correct, not just from the way
Speaker 1: we do our job and making sure that we're addressing
Speaker 1: the correct people, but for like respect issues, you know,
Speaker 1: you just want to respectfully get things right. And I
Speaker 1: think that we are posed with this problem a lot,
Speaker 1: you know. Like I remember, I was we were investigating
Speaker 1: a theater recently and it was called the Rialto Theater.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many realto theaters there are in
Speaker 1: this country? And so I was trying to research it
Speaker 1: and go through old newspapers and things, and I could
Speaker 1: see how people could very easily kind of get their
Speaker 1: information frost. So I respect how hard that must be
Speaker 1: kind of trying to shuffle through that. But have you
Speaker 1: learned any interesting history or stories about the building that
Speaker 1: is there now that people might not know? Um, A
Speaker 1: lot of the nurses that used to work there come
Speaker 1: through our tours, not a lot of them tell us
Speaker 1: different stories, you know, different suicides that had happened over
Speaker 1: the years. A couple that we have confirmed, one in
Speaker 1: general with the woman named Kim that committed suicide in
Speaker 1: the nurses wing. Um. I believe she had hung herself,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a tragic story, but we did
Speaker 1: find that that one was confirmed. And there was another
Speaker 1: one that had jumped off of a waterteller I think
Speaker 1: it was like a maintenance sky or something, and that
Speaker 1: was confirmed as well. So there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that come through, like the nurses, have stories, but you
Speaker 1: also have to basically kind of do your history there
Speaker 1: too to make sure that even because every one of
Speaker 1: them has like a different story to what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a tough one because I think sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: employees will come in and it's been decades obviously since
Speaker 1: they worked there. But then also they might have not
Speaker 1: directly been associated with something that they're saying happened. It
Speaker 1: might have been something that they even heard through the
Speaker 1: grapevine at the time. And what I found interesting as
Speaker 1: I interviewed, because I interviewed a few former employees when
Speaker 1: we investigated there, and they were all very fond of
Speaker 1: the location. They didn't necessarily have you know, bad memories
Speaker 1: or there were no stories of like abuse or anything
Speaker 1: like that. It was mostly there were some sad stories.
Speaker 1: You know. There were some people that they really desperately
Speaker 1: tried to help and I and it didn't work out
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. But I found that interesting. How often
Speaker 1: do you have former employees or even maybe even former
Speaker 1: patients come into the building. Yeah, I'm not sure about
Speaker 1: the patients. Would never actually had anybody say I was
Speaker 1: a patient there. I've seen some a couple online that's
Speaker 1: that they were there for a little while as a patient,
Speaker 1: but we never got into an actual you know interview.
Speaker 1: Probably with the nurses coming through last year and the
Speaker 1: year before. We probably had maybe a total of ten
Speaker 1: that have come through in the past two years. And
Speaker 1: have they had any active video while they were there
Speaker 1: and wondering if the building remembers them. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: some of them did. Some of them had an amazing time.
Speaker 1: I think that even been back like two or three
Speaker 1: times since that, and others. I think just love to
Speaker 1: see that the asylum technically, it's still in really good shape.
Speaker 1: The owner is trying to restore a lot of the
Speaker 1: areas back to its original look, and I think just
Speaker 1: having them come in and sees that, you know, and
Speaker 1: and how it was when they were there and how
Speaker 1: it looks now, just something that they'd like to see.
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes when you do restore these locations
Speaker 1: to look the way they were before, that actually causes
Speaker 1: activity or raises the activity levels. And it's nice to
Speaker 1: have the nurses because they definitely know, you know, doing that.
Speaker 1: What what do you think the owner's hope is. Is
Speaker 1: he wanting to open it as a museum or what
Speaker 1: do you think he wants to do with it. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of ideas where everything from like a
Speaker 1: little tiny, not necessary a mall, but they wanted to
Speaker 1: do like a coffee shop in the front section of
Speaker 1: the building where you'd walk in and just with restoring
Speaker 1: the floors, restoring all the hardwood. Upstairs, he wanted to
Speaker 1: turn the second floor where the the owner of the
Speaker 1: hospital their family would stay at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: back when it was forties fifties. He wants to turn
Speaker 1: that into like little condole units or something or something
Speaker 1: where people can come and spend the night while on
Speaker 1: events in town and stuff. It's interesting because when you
Speaker 1: you know you you walk through this hospital and it
Speaker 1: is like just very tiled and big hallways, and then
Speaker 1: you walk through this door and you walk into these
Speaker 1: living quarters that are gorgeous like somebody you know that
Speaker 1: that's where the owner's family lived, and like these beautiful
Speaker 1: hardwood floors. You would never know that you you look
Speaker 1: like I can't even describe it. You literally look like
Speaker 1: you were in a Victorian house or something like. You
Speaker 1: feel that way, but you're in this little section of
Speaker 1: a massive asylum, which I find to be so interesting
Speaker 1: with that's how they did at in the time the
Speaker 1: family lived there. So the asylum ultimately closed in two
Speaker 1: thousand two. And how long have you been investigating it now?
Speaker 1: This is our third year, so we've been there a
Speaker 1: total of three years. And what do you think causes
Speaker 1: the most activity? Like when you go in, is there
Speaker 1: anything in particular that you find that you do or
Speaker 1: say that causes things to happen? A lot of times
Speaker 1: we'll talk to the spirits there on certain floors based
Speaker 1: on what they were like drugs and alcohol, asked them
Speaker 1: if they're like uh in an a a meeting, if
Speaker 1: they're getting the help they needed, Sometimes even props are
Speaker 1: brought in. We've actually had a few of the ghosts,
Speaker 1: even down in the tunnels, say that they liked Papst
Speaker 1: Blue Ribbon beer, so we'll bring them in a beer.
Speaker 1: They liked cigarettes, we'll bring them in cigarettes. And I
Speaker 1: also noticed that one time we tried doing we had
Speaker 1: three girls in one of our always they were singing
Speaker 1: any songs for like Christmas and gospel or inspirational songs.
Speaker 1: They were singing them in the hallways, and it seemed
Speaker 1: like the activity picked up at one they were singing.
Speaker 1: Or we play some old tunes that maybe back in
Speaker 1: the fourties and fifties they like to hear, you seem
Speaker 1: to get more activity, noises, things that tend to come
Speaker 1: out a little bit more. I think music does instigate
Speaker 1: activity a lot, because it's kind of like scent in
Speaker 1: the sense that it just transports you back instantly to
Speaker 1: a time. And we've had great success with that. And
Speaker 1: you know, fun fact, when we're filming, you know, when
Speaker 1: we're investigating not on camera, we can play all the
Speaker 1: music we want, but when we're filming, we have to
Speaker 1: be very careful about what we play because of licensing
Speaker 1: rights and things. But we did play music knowing that
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't be able to play it on TV,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure it did get us some results.
Speaker 1: But that's interesting, and it's actually like a very respectful
Speaker 1: way to go about it. Unfortunately, a lot of these
Speaker 1: buildings like this, it's the inkland ation of people to
Speaker 1: go in and start yelling or provoking or making blanket
Speaker 1: assumptions about who they're speaking with and what their mind
Speaker 1: set is. And it's not as I think exciting for
Speaker 1: some people sometimes to think of it as just walking
Speaker 1: in and sitting down and having a conversation, walking in
Speaker 1: like you know, you're meeting someone for the first time.
Speaker 1: But that legitimately is how you get the most activity.
Speaker 1: Like that is how it works the most information. I
Speaker 1: should say, you can go in guns blazing and provoke
Speaker 1: and probably get some pretty extreme activity, but is that
Speaker 1: really how people want to do that. So I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you guys are proponents of being super respectful, especially
Speaker 1: in a place like that. Yeah, it's hard to get
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the outside. They don't come
Speaker 1: to our tours, they've never seen us, some of them
Speaker 1: never even heard of us, and then they just get
Speaker 1: that first opinion of us of all, we're being disrespect
Speaker 1: full to the people that were once at the hospital
Speaker 1: there because of their conditions and why they were there,
Speaker 1: and we're not about that. Like I said, we're very
Speaker 1: respectful to the ghosts of that past because there were
Speaker 1: people that were like you and me. They're not evil
Speaker 1: entities or anything dwelling within an asylum. They were once people,
Speaker 1: So we treat them with respect and we don't provoke.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing, absolutely, And I think historically it's
Speaker 1: important that we kind of remember how these places existed
Speaker 1: and functioned, and I think that investigating them and digging
Speaker 1: into the history is a big part of that. And
Speaker 1: you know, if I had someone who spent time in
Speaker 1: one of these locations, like a relative or something, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to think that their spirit was just there
Speaker 1: in this big, empty building and no one was trying
Speaker 1: to help them or interact with them. So it's comforting
Speaker 1: to me to know that there are people like you
Speaker 1: and your team that go into these places just in
Speaker 1: case there's someone who needs help or someone who needs assistance,
Speaker 1: like if we are right about all this, but that
Speaker 1: someone's going in and respectfully speaking to them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is kind of a stigma that a lot of
Speaker 1: us paranormal investigators have to deal with, like this idea
Speaker 1: that we're taking advantage. Now, you guys do do tours,
Speaker 1: but obviously, like we're very respectful tours, you know, So
Speaker 1: do you guys do daytime tours as well as nighttime
Speaker 1: tours or how does that all work out there? Last
Speaker 1: year we started doing historical tours in the day for
Speaker 1: people that wanted to learn the history rather than the paranormal,
Speaker 1: because a lot of more would I ask us what
Speaker 1: you do a historical tour? So last year we did
Speaker 1: two of them. The scup coming year will probably do
Speaker 1: a couple more, so people can see it during the
Speaker 1: day and get the historical part of it rather than
Speaker 1: just the paranormal part of it. I would recommend doing both,
Speaker 1: just having been there. It's one of those places that
Speaker 1: photographs very very well if you're into that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: Like it's just the lighting is spectacular in there, and
Speaker 1: just the artifacts and it has held together very well.
Speaker 1: Whenever we go into these super old buildings like this,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how fast they just start falling apart when
Speaker 1: no one is there to live in them, you know.
Speaker 1: But this one is in very good shape and being
Speaker 1: there even at like twilight, the lighting and so it's
Speaker 1: it's obviously very spooky, but it is it's beautiful. I
Speaker 1: love the history of it, and I think investigating there
Speaker 1: taught me a lot about the motivation of some of
Speaker 1: these therapists and doctors and nurses. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of one of the first asylums that I investigated that
Speaker 1: I didn't have a bunch of horror stories coming out
Speaker 1: of it, because it was kind of built in the
Speaker 1: thirties and forties and they really were kind of turning
Speaker 1: a page at that point as to how they treated
Speaker 1: people with mental illness, and it was fascinating to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as compared to like Waverly Hills where they had those
Speaker 1: nask the experiments on people. Yes, I mean some of
Speaker 1: the places I've investigated, like trans Alleghany, the things they
Speaker 1: did to people are just horrifying. If it's fair to
Speaker 1: say an asylum can be refreshing, this one was so
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about how people can get
Speaker 1: in touch with you, what you guys do there, if
Speaker 1: they want to go on tours, if they want to visit,
Speaker 1: let's get people out there. If they want to see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely follow us on Fox Belly ghost Unders on Facebook.
Speaker 1: We also have Fox Belly ghost Hunters dot Com. There's
Speaker 1: a page just especially for the Asylument's should Boygan Insane
Speaker 1: Asylum investigations and yeah, I know the names a little misleading,
Speaker 1: but we want to shy people away from visiting the
Speaker 1: local downtown hospitals. So um, that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: for that. Me and my lead investigator just bought a
Speaker 1: haunted school over in Glenbula, Wisconsin, and we'll be closing
Speaker 1: on that in February and eventually we'll we haven't tours
Speaker 1: there as well in the near future, so a couple
Speaker 1: of different places, and then just following us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: you'll see all the different locations and events that we
Speaker 1: have to offer, including the Bogan Asylum. That's fantastic, So
Speaker 1: I feel like I'll probably be investigating that school in
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, and Adams got to come. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: would love to. So well, it's been really great to
Speaker 1: talk with you. I appreciate you taking the time, and yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone listening. If you can go check out the asylum
Speaker 1: or anything Craig is working on. They are a great
Speaker 1: group and we loved working with them, so thank you
Speaker 1: so much, and hopefully we'll chat again soon about this school. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. The Sheboygan County Asylum Hospital, Comprehensive health Care Center,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, is undoubtedly haunted and yes,
Speaker 1: on its own, that is spooky and scary and for
Speaker 1: some fun, but it's also an important reminder of why
Speaker 1: we do our due diligence in finding out the history
Speaker 1: of such places before you walk in and start talking
Speaker 1: to its ghosts. Any empty hospital is going to look
Speaker 1: scary inside and out, but this one had such a
Speaker 1: positive focus and reputation. You're not going to meet the
Speaker 1: ghosts of those faced with mal treatment. Rather, you're going
Speaker 1: to perhaps be speaking to someone who had very real
Speaker 1: struggles in life and may still be having them in
Speaker 1: the afterlife. I encourage anyone who investigates there to remember
Speaker 1: that and treat them accordingly, because who knows, you may
Speaker 1: just be doing more good than you realize. I'm Amy Bruney,
Speaker 1: and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkey.
Speaker 1: The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney, Executive
Speaker 1: producers include Aaron Minky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
Speaker 1: show is produced Irima ill Kali and Trevor Young. Research
Speaker 1: by Taylor haggerdorn Amy Bruney and Robin Minoter. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.