Jefferson Davis Hospital

Texas · United States · Cemetery

Houston's first city hospital was built on top of a cemetery. Visitors describe the smell of sterilising solution in specific spots.

Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston, Texas was the city's first, and it was built on the site of a cemetery, which is the fact that everything else here rests on.

What visitors describe includes nurses, doctors and patients moving through the building, the sense of being watched, shadows, and one detail that recurs more than any other: the smell of sterilising solution, noticed in particular places rather than throughout.

Smell is the least suggestible of the senses to fake and the hardest to describe convincingly, which is why it is the report worth noting here.

The building stood derelict for many years and attracted an enormous amount of traffic from people breaking in, and the accounts describe the presences as agitated by it.

It has since been restored and converted into artists' housing, which is a considerably better fate than most buildings of this kind get.

FAQ

Where is Jefferson Davis Hospital located?

Jefferson Davis Hospital is in Texas, United States.

Image: Patrick Feller / CC BY 2.0 via flickr