Those driving through Ashland after sunset will notice an absence of stars when you get to a certain location.. Along 61, there’s huge bruiting building that is hell bent on creating even more darkness than the night itself..
The former Ashland Hospital, former St. Catherine Medical Center, and former Miner’s Hospital, is like a solid vacant mass under a full moon. It was filled once with life–and death–on a nightly basis.
People were born there. I was born there. People in my family died there, as did many others from Schuylkill County and beyond.
As any fiercely frightening location should, they had a morgue. It rested peacefully in the basement level of the facility..
But this building, while being the subject matter of ghostly tales and strange anomalies through the years, is immensely missed. The notion of a working ER and a full capacity hospital nearby during any pandemic can make you sleep better at night. The former owners of St. Catherine, well, we could go on in a book about that and maybe one day will.
The fate of this hospital was decided in 2012 when the facility shuddered its doors.
At the time, Saint Catherine Medical Center, Saint Catherine Regional Hospital and Saint Catherine Healthcare in March were ordered to pay a $168,760 judgment to Lease Associates, In addition, PPL Electric Utilities filed a lawsuit last month. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, District Council 89, AFL-CIO also are claiming they are due wages and benefits.
John Usalis reported this in the Pottsville REPUBLICAN HERALD in 2012:
In 2001, ARMC filed for bankruptcy protection, with Province Healthcare, Brentwood, Tenn., purchasing the facility later that year. In 2006, the transfer of ownership was made to Saint Catherine Hospital of Pennsylvania, LLC, from LifePoint Hospitals Inc., which became owner in a merger with Province. The hospital was renamed Saint Catherine’s at the time of the purchase.
The closing of the hospital this month was mainly due to major financial problems, including $5.8 million of debt. Lack of medical supplies for patients, workers not receiving their paychecks for weeks were factors cited.
Those workers finally received a portion of their paychecks in December 2013.
THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE MINERS HOSPITAL
Saint Catherine’s Hospital of Pennsylvania filed for Chapter 11 in the spring of 2012.
Since that action, there have been false hopes that Geisinger would purchase. There have been false hopes that it would be opened as a drug rehab center.
There were false hopes during a public auction that SOMEONE would purchase this historic building and create into a new hospital:
All of those hopes have fallen by the wayside. Gone.
Finally on March 13, 2020, just as the pandemic shut downs began, a company MSCG PA SPE LLC purchased the former hospital for $1.00. Despite research, we cannot find further contact information on who owns MSCG PA SPE LLC or where it is.
The past of the miners hospital
The vast shadow of the dark building still casts is memory on the landscape below.. The hospital, which can be seen from every higher point in the area from Fountain Springs to Ashland, is simply now a memory of something gone ..
The need for better medical care was evident in the 1870s.. miners were dying or becoming very injured at their dangerous craft.. In 1879, state legislation was approved to form the State Hospital for Injured Persons of the Anthracite Coal Region at Fountain Springs.
Construction of the new hospital began in May 1880 and was completed in 1882. The original building included several wards, an Administrative wing, operating rooms, laundry and a stable.
The first patient, John Lucas from Shenandoah, was admitted on November 14, 1883, following an injury at the Kohinoor Colliery. Originally the hospital could only accept injured miners, railroad workers and textile workers, in that priority order. No women or children, or people with serious illnesses would be accepted as patients until the early 1900’s.
In the early 1960s, plans were made to build a new facility. The current building was completed in 1967 and the original building was demolished at the same time. The hospital’s name became Ashland State General Hospital over the years.
A personal experience
Unlike previous SKOOKY THINGS, we are not basing this tale on news posts or snippets from historical paperwork. Instead some of this is from people we know. And personal experiences.
During the period of time when the hospital was closed since 2012, I had the opportunity to speak to many people who worked there, and those who were still working there tying up loose ends until the middle of 2013..
These employees were working as a result of the bankruptcy. They were purging old records, attempting to contact persons who were still available to get records, and finalizing a building forever.
I went for my own set of medical records, such as my snake bite that I may or may have had, my broken ankle, and my chicken bone that was stuck in my neck–that very few people believe was stuck in my neck! My birth records had already been purged.
But it gave me the opportunity to discuss weird and bizarre things happening in the facility … during a time when immense silence had descended over it. A time when doctors and nurses were gone, when medical beds were empty, and where rooms and hallways were darkened.
If there are spirits and the paranormal is real, the Ashland hospital must became a party place!
So I had the chance on a few occasions to do a building walkthrough during this period of time. There were constant buzzing noises being heard at the nurses station – no patients were in any rooms, but yet the call buttons were still sounding…
Mini blinds were moving without any windows being open…
And (this always seems to be a tale told in various locations) there was mysterious woman dressed in all white, appearing ghostly and walking the halls of an old closed down maternity ward on the fifth floor.
I was witness to the strange mini blind issue–which could have been explained by the movement of air in some form–and the nurses call buttons being pushed–maybe electrical problems could explain this. I did not witness the ghostly nurse in all white. Thankfully. But those I spoke to said they did, and not only that, but became aware of her so much that they paused their own activity until she left out of respect.
CROUCHING BOY, HIDDEN DRAGON
The most chilling tale that I can relay about the Ashland hospital actually came from a friend of mine who was there, he was recovering from a medical crisis. I will keep him nameless for the purposes of this Skooky Things episode..
The patient however had told me something that others also repeated independently.
A story was of young boy in coal mining type clothing wandering the floors of the hospital, often the boy would show up in the room with someone who was seriously ill or undergoing an intensive procedure.. So says the tale told.
When I spoke to my friend over Facebook messenger about his 2006 medical issue and subsequent surgery, I jokingly asked him, “did you see anything strange?” He became serious and said, “yes”..
My friend went on to describe how he saw shadows of people walking around him, whispers in the darkness. Perhaps all of this could be explained away by the medicine he was on and the high amount of painkillers. All explainable. All just run of the mill hallucinations.
Until he described a young boy in ‘weird’ clothing, vacantly staring at him from the corner of the room. As matter fact, he said he saw the boy two times. The first time when he was highly medicated on pain medicine, and the second time when he was fully recovered and leaving the hospital. He said he turned and looked in a room holding the bed of someone very sick and saw the same boy staring at that man. According to my friend, the boy stopped showing up in his room when a local priest came and performed a blessing on him.
The souls of yesterday may still be there today
If there are these souls that inhabit this old vacant hospital, what are they doing now?
The electricity is cut off, there is no life within the building, and during the nighttime, the building appears as a large shadow with no light emitting from.
It’s like a black hole on a hill, or a monster breathing darkness and it lurks in inactivity.
If there are troubled souls who roam that hospital, they must be confused as to where all the other life is gone..
As for the crouching boy and my friend? I asked him if he told the priest but he saw the boy. My friend said he did not. But he did ask the priest for an intense blessing.. I suppose it is something that one may keep to himself.. It’s between the patient.
And the crouching boy in the corner of the hospital room…
