Traverse City State Hospital

Michigan · United States · Hospital

The Michigan asylum closed in 1989. The claim that religious objects are destroyed before you can carry them inside is the least credible thing said about.

Traverse City State Hospital closed in 1989 after more than a century as a psychiatric institution, and locally it is widely regarded as haunted.

One claim circulates more than any other: that anyone attempting to bring religious material into the building, a bible, holy water, a cross, will find it destroyed before they get inside.

That one deserves to be named for what it is. Nothing supports it, it is untestable by design, and it belongs to the exorcism film tradition rather than to anything reported by people who worked here.

What visitors do report is figures on the grounds, and voices and screaming carrying along the corridors of the old psychiatric wards.

The hospital was run for most of its life on the principle that beauty and work were treatment, which is why the grounds are as they are. Much of the site has since been restored and converted, and parts of it are open.

FAQ

Where is Traverse City State Hospital located?

Traverse City State Hospital is in Michigan, United States.

Image: Patricia Drury from Detroit, United States / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons