Paranormal Road Trip: Destination Louisville with Shiloh Walker

Come on boys and ghouls!  It's time to hop on Route 666 for a spooktacular Paranormal Road Trip.

This week's stop is Louisville, Kentucky and our special guide is Shiloh Walker.  Shiloh is the author of the Ash Trilogy, the Rafferty series, The Hunters series, the Grimm's Circle series, and the FBI Psychics series, as well the Colbana Files urban fantasy series as J.C. Daniels.

Shiloh's Top Spooky Places in Louisville

So you want to check out the things that go bump in the night?  Head on down to Louisville, KY.

When you get there, maybe talk to my mom’s side of the family.  Almost all of them have seen a ghost…or three.  If he was still alive, you could talk to my grandfather—he was actually my mom’s stepdad.  Although, honestly, I doubt he’d tell you this story.

He was a cool guy.  He had this big eagle tattooed on his chest.  Apparently, he was in the navy and got…um, well.  One morning, he woke up and there it was.  ‘Nuff said, right?  He made the most amazing dollhouses.

He’s been gone a long time and my memories of him are mostly just impressions.  But I’ve got stories.

One in particular.

Let me tell about this night…

My family all came from Louisville.  Both sides have been in this general area for a while—my dad’s side has actually been in Kentucky going back generations.  My parents had been dating for a little while and on this particular night, they came home to find my grandmother sitting outside with R*.  had been married to my grandmother for only a short while.  He was my grandmother’s second husband.

It was kind of odd for both of them to be sitting on the porch and my folks looked at them and asked, “What are you all doing out here?”

R looked at Grandma and then at my dad.  “Son, would you mind going into the house, down to our bedroom and turning off the lamp?”

Dad probably thought this was weird.  But he did it and came back out.

“It’s off.”

R. asked him to go and check, and then said, “Would you unplug it? Just to be sure?”

So, Dad does just that. Except it was already unplugged.  Oh. And the light was on.  You can imagine he came scooting out of that house really fast.

Turns out, R. had been napping while Grandma was on the bed reading.  He woke up to see the light coming on, then going off.  He asked Grandma to stop playing with the light.  She said, “It’s not me.  Just lay there.  It will do it again.”

It did. He got up. Unplugged it.  Laid down.  The light came on. Went off.   He jumped off the bed and moved.  Grandma was right after him.

I never did ask what happened to the lamp.

Nor can I tell you where this house is…my mom probably still remembers, but I’m not about to risk setting some family up to be harassed. ;)

But if you’re looking for some spooky thrills, what about the Seelbach?  While you’re probably not going to find much about it at the hotel’s official website, the hotel has had more than just presidents and famous writers within its walls.  Back in the thirties, a woman was found dead in the elevator shaft and ever since, people report seeing a woman in a long blue gown walking toward the elevators on the eighth floor. She’s called, of course, The Lady in Blue.  Guests have complaints of freezing rooms.  There have been reports of seeing people in reflections…then you turn and nobody is there.

Another famously haunted hotel would be the Brown.  The original owner, James Graham Brown, is said to have really loved life.  He loved his life and he loved his hotel.  According to Halloween Louisville, he loved these things so much, he just never left.  People complain all the time about the footsteps up on the 15th floor.  But the only thing on the 15th floor is storage.  Weird, yeah?

But the real jewel of the Louisville haunts has got to be Waverly.  This place is amazing and I can tell you this from experience—I’ve been there.  From the towering, crumbling façade to the eerie, echoing silence of the body chute, there is no other place on earth like Waverly Hills Sanatorium.  Thousands of people died here of TB.  There were suicides as well—I believe one of the ghosts supposedly haunting the place is a nurse who killed herself.

Because they didn’t want moral to suffer from the high death rate, a tunnel was built to take bodies away from the hospital.  It’s been called the death tunnel, the body chute, etc.  The tunnel was used to transfer bodies from the hospital down the hill—no, people were just sent rolling down the chute.

And yes…it’s still there.

So, who is up for a road trip?

Thank you Shiloh for giving us such a haunting tour of Louisville!  

To learn more about Shiloh Walker and her books, please visit her website, and don't miss our Q+A with Shiloh Walker here at From the Shadows.  You can add her books here on Goodreads.

Have you visited Louisville, Kentucky?  Ever experience anything of the supernatural kind in and around Louisville?

What did you think of Shiloh's picks for spooky places?

Last week on Paranormal Road Trip we visited Banff, Alberta with Nancy Baker. In case you missed it, we're also having a Paranormal Road Trip Giveaway.  (ending soon)  Win an Amazon Gift Card!

Next week we'll be traveling to Rapid City with Elizabeth Bear.

Join us for another spine-tingling Paranormal Road Trip...
if you dare!