St. Ignatius Hospital

The story

Colfax, in Whitman County, Washington, competed with Pullman and Palouse City for a hospital in 1892, after a local priest, Rev. Jachern, asked for one, and Colfax won. A Catholic order of sisters started building on April 17, 1893, and the brick hospital opened in 1894. Wikipedia and The Spokesman-Review name the order as the Sisters of Providence, while Spokane Historical calls them the Sisters of Charity. Local boosters claimed it was among the best-equipped hospitals in the Pacific Northwest. In its first eighteen months it treated 145 patients. The county paid for 84 of them, 50 paid their own way, the railroad covered one, and 10 were treated as charity cases.

By 1908 the hospital was paying for itself, and it began to grow. An elevator and a laundry building were added, and a new east wing was finished in 1917 for about $17,500. Patients occupied the second and third floors. The fourth floor held the surgery along with living quarters for the sisters and nurses, and a small chapel sat in the northeast corner. A nursing school graduated its first class starting in 1911. The hospital performed its first cesarean section in February 1915, and mother and baby girl, who weighed ten and a half pounds, both recovered. A west wing followed in 1928, along with a separate heating plant, and in 1929 the kitchen was enlarged and given refrigeration.

In 1964 state health officials said the hospital would lose its license unless it was completely rebuilt. The town organized a hospital board to meet a $1.2 million goal, with $400,000 from a federal Hill-Burton grant, $600,000 from churches, clubs and private donors, and $150,000 from selling equipment. Whitman Community Hospital, the replacement, was dedicated in November 1968, and the names of some 2,700 people who had helped were recorded in a book in its front hall. The old building became St. Ignatius Manor, a residential care home for adults with developmental disabilities. Sources disagree on whether that use ended in 2000 or 2003, but the building has been empty since 2003. In 2015 the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation put it on its list of the state's most endangered historic places.

The legend

St. Ignatius has no known ghost lore from its hospital years. No dated ghost report has been found from before October 2015, when the Colfax Chamber of Commerce, led by Valoree Gregory, began running paranormal tours to raise money for the empty building. The stories have grown since then, mainly through guides, paying visitors and television.

Most of the activity is attributed in general terms to former patients. Spokane Historical names one: F. E. Martin, described as the first person to die there, in 1893: a man crushed between two railroad cars, whose figure is supposedly seen in the corridors. That claim comes from only one source. From the manor years, guides talk about a former resident. Some visitors and guides avoid the room named after her, and a psychic once described the presence there as "very angry." The tours also include a Children's Room and Dave's Room, but no particular haunting has been described for either. The sisters who ran the hospital show up mainly in titles, such as the Watcher channel's "The Nightmare Nuns of St Ignatius," and the news coverage describes no specific nun ghost.

The reports collected by The Spokesman-Review and ABC News in 2016 are fairly consistent. Guides say they hear voices on recorders, fragments of conversation and slamming doors, and some have seen full-length shadow figures at the end of a hallway. Colfax's city administrator, Mike Rizzitiello, told the Spokesman-Review he heard footsteps coming toward him on the fourth floor with nobody there. ABC described a tour group hearing someone run up the stairs toward them and finding the stairwell empty, and a visitor who could not bring herself to enter one room and had to be walked out. Guides also point to a corridor nicknamed "left is dead." According to the story, in the old triage system the most seriously ill patients were sent left, toward the elevator that went down to the basement morgue.

Television picked up the hospital quickly. Paranormal Lockdown (Destination America) spent 72 hours inside for Season 2, Episode 4, broadcast January 6, 2017. Ghost Adventures aired its "St. Ignatius Hospital" episode on June 15, 2019. Wikipedia's article on the hospital lists it as Season 18, Episode 8, but the show's episode list says Season 19, Episode 2. The episode summary mentions growls and visitors claiming to be attacked by unseen hands. In 2022 Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej covered the hospital in two episodes of the YouTube series Ghost Files, with guest Garrett Watts describing his own visit. Ghost Hunters followed on Travel Channel with Season 16, Episode 6, "The Myth of St. Ignatius" (May 11, 2023).

No skeptical study of the claims has been found. The one thing that can be said with confidence is the timeline: the stories became prominent once tours started paying for the building's upkeep. That does not make anyone's experience false, but it is worth keeping in mind.

What remains today

The old hospital building still stands in Colfax but has been vacant since 2003. News reports describe a building damaged by years without use. The Chamber of Commerce tours earned more than $30,000 in 2015-2016, and that money went to the Chamber and the city. The building was sold again in early 2021, and the new owners announced plans to partly renovate it for tours. The 2023 Ghost Hunters episode mentioned plans to turn it into a hotel. No reopening date has been announced.

Visiting

St. Ignatius is private property and is not open for casual visits. The building is old and damaged, so wandering in alone would be both trespassing and dangerous. Do not try it. Under the Chamber of Commerce, tours lasted about two hours for groups of 5 to 20, cost $45 in 2016, and came with EMF meters and recorders. There were also overnight stays and Halloween events. It is not confirmed whether tours have run since the 2021 sale. Check with Colfax or the Chamber of Commerce before you go, and visit only on an organized tour. Otherwise, you can see the exterior from the public street.

Sources

1. Wikimedia Commons category : St. Ignatius Hospital — Wikimedia Commons
2. USGS 1:125000-scale Quadrangle for Pullman, WA 1910 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1910 · Public domain (USGS)
3. USGS 1:24000-scale Quadrangle for Colfax North, WA 1964 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1964 · Public domain (USGS)
4. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Pullman, WA 1958 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1958 · Public domain (USGS)
5. "List of Ghost Adventures episodes" — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
6. "List of Ghost Hunters episodes" — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
7. "St. Ignatius Hospital" — Spokane Historical — Spokane Historical
8. "St. Ignatius in Colfax finding new life as a haunted attraction" — The Spokesman-Review (Rebecca White, Jack Ramsay, 7 Oct 2016) — Review (Rebecca White, Jack Ramsay, 7 Oct 2016
9. "Tour 120-Year-Old, Abandoned Hospital That's Become a Magnet for Ghost Hunters" — ABC News (Nicole Pelletiere, 20 Oct 2016) — ABC News (Nicole Pelletiere, 20 Oct 2016
10. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.