Built in 1922, The Old Yoakum Community Hospital once served as the hospital for the community of Yoakum, as well as the surrounding rural areas. It was first built as Huth Community hospital. Then in 1933, due to the poor economy and depression, the hospital was bought and managed by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Victoria.
Over the next few decades, the hospital grew in size as the community grew and was in need of more medical services. In the 1980s, the hospital was sold to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio. They continued to run the Old Yoakum Community Hospital, but closed it’s doors as an inpatient hospital in 1997, as they built a larger, modern hospital outside of town to serve the growing needs of the community. Even after closing it’s doors in the late 90s, the hospital continues to draw guests. Some of it’s patients and staff never seem to have left.
The building is now managed by the Old Yoakum Community Hospital Group. They are a paranormal research group, who made arrangements with the current owner, to conduct paranormal investigations in the vacant building. The group conducts paranormal investigations nearly every weekend. They utilize the building for conducting paranormal research as a group, but also host “open investigations” for the public, as well as leasing the building to other paranormal enthusiasts and groups large and small.
As you can imagine, a hospital is filled with energy, positive and negative. As the only hospital for the community, it housed two operating rooms, general medicine floors, labor and delivery, a nursery, an emergency room, and even a small intensive care unit. The “normal” energy of the sick and injured is reported in the building, but the main focus of energy seems to be on the second floor. In the early 1990s, a young nurse was working in the Intensive Care Unit. During her shift, she received a visit from her jilted lover. In a rage, he argued with her in the waiting room of the second floor, pulled out a gun, and shot her several times, before running out of the hospital. Although the doctors and nurses took the injured nurse to the ICU, trying to save her, it was too late, the gunshots were fatal.
The nurse is often still seen walking throughout the second floor. Her full apparition has appeared to investigators, startling quite a few. She tends to communicate with those who will sit and talk with her. She communicates through EMF spikes, EVPs, and digital images. On the second night of the investigation, the team recorded, what we believe to be her voice. This was heard by several members of the team...a disembodied “Hey”.
Another spirit who is believed to haunt the old hospital is that of a beloved priest. Father Kraum knew the setting of a hospital quite well. He was a victim of polio. The disease confined him to a wheelchair. Despite his disability, he was a very active man. He worked and lived at the hospital for many years, saying Mass every Sunday. Often, members of the community chose go to Mass at the hospital, rather than the Yoakum Catholic Church. His old room is down the hall from the Intensive Care Unit. Although the team did not catch a presence of his spirit on the second floor, his energy remains present in the old chapel on the first floor, where his original wheelchair still is kept.
Since the hospital has been vacant for almost 20 years, it certainly has the “creep” factor going on. The basement, which once housed the central supply is dark. With no power downstairs, your flashlight is the only light even in the middle of the day. A yellowed surgery schedule still hanging on a clipboard, you can imagine how it once was. Going up to the first floor, there is the Emergency room. Here is the Director of Nursing’s office. She is said to still haunt her area, wanting to keep everything “just so”. If you move her things, she will place them right back where she had them, right before your eyes! Radiology and the lab are downstairs, along with both operating rooms, a waiting room, the kitchen/cafeteria, and the chapel. Old medical equipment still litters some of these areas, dusty and rusty.
The second floor has the nursery, Physical therapy department, Intensive care unit, and patient rooms. The acoustics down the hallways is a bit eerie. You can hear the echoes from fellow investigators down the elevator shafts. The apparition of the nurse is seen here, but also the dark shadow mass of a large man has also been captured. At the end of the hall, one team caught the calls for “Help” from a lost patient of long ago. The third floor is the most run down of the hospital. The delivery room and more patient rooms. In one of those rooms, women investigators often report being touched by an unseen presence.
If you are looking for paranormal activity, take the scenic drive to Yoakum TX. It’s well worth the visit. The team stayed for two nights, “Team Vagelka” even dared to stay the night! We caught some great evidence, had personal experiences, and would like to thank the Old Yoakum Hospital Group for letting us investigate, they were great hosts.