The Shadow
Near the Indian massacre in colonial days that took place in the New River Valley where Mary Draper Ingles was taken hostage by the Shawnee and held for ransom, the St. Albans Sanatorium sits abandoned.
Built as a Lutheran boys’ school that was repurposed for a sanatorium for the mentally ill, St. Albans Sanatorium in Radford is being advertised as a haunted place, the No. 1 place to visit on Halloween.
Beyond the hype, there is reason for the claim, not only did the area see bloodshed during the colonial days when Ingles’ life was changed forever by the Shawnee’s raid in the summer of 1755 during the French and Indian War that left her mother and her sister-in-law’s child slain along with three other colonists before Ingles was taken north.
Taken hostage and forced to trek some 300 miles to the Ohio River, Ingles and another woman hostage eventually escaped and found their way back to Radford.
From the bloody beginning till more than a century later in 1892 when the Lutheran boys’ school was built in Radford, the account of Ingles and the Draper Meadows Massacre remained well known to settlers in the New River Valley.
Following the conversion of the boys’ school to the St. Albans Sanatorium, the pain and suffering of the mentally ill within the walls of the facility has added to the folklore that the building is haunted.
Billed as the most haunted spot on the East Coast, the St. Albans Sanatorium has become well known for its haunted house tours. A general admission ticket can be purchased for $20, and tours are conducted from 7:00 p.m. till midnight.
Many paranormal investigative teams have claimed that the site is the most active they have encountered, and the hype has led to year-round ghost tours, especially on Fri. 13th and Halloween.
Located in Ru Corporate Park in Fairlawn, the attraction is open year-round, and tours can be arranged by calling (540) 260-3111. Advertisements for the ghost tours note that the tours are not for the faint of heart.
