Haunted Sites
Summoning the spirits…
Photo: JeffersonLH · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Old Candler Hospital & Morgue Tunnel
Georgia's first hospital, whose 1884 underground morgue tunnel runs toward Forsyth Park. Tours tell of patients 'who never left'; the tunnel is sealed and closed to visitors.
- Address
- 516 Drayton St, Savannah, GA 31401
- Hours
- Check the official website or call ahead for current hours.
- Admission
- Check the official website.
- Access
- exterior only (tunnel sealed; not open to tours)
The real history
About the place
Candler is Georgia's first hospital, and the Georgia Historical Society calls it the second-oldest continuously operating hospital in the United States. Its roots go back to the 1730s, when the Methodist missionary George Whitefield brought medicines for sick seamen and the poor. It was chartered in 1804 as a seamen's hospital and poor house and incorporated in 1808 as the Savannah Poor House and Hospital Society. In 1819 it moved to Gaston Street, beside what became Forsyth Park, and stayed there for 160 years. The main building was completed in 1877.
Union forces used it as a hospital after occupying Savannah, until 1866. It was renamed the Savannah Hospital in 1872, opened the city's first nursing school in 1902, and was renamed for Methodist Bishop Warren A. Candler in 1930. In 1980 the hospital moved to a new campus on Reynolds Street.
The old complex at 516 Drayton Street later housed the Savannah Law School. In 2018 the Savannah College of Art and Design bought it, and it is now SCAD's Deloitte Foundry. The buildings are not generally open to the public, but you can see them from the street and from Forsyth Park.
Local legend
The Ghost Story
Told here as local lore, the way guides, books and visitors tell it. These are legends, not established fact.
Few Savannah legends are darker than the one told at the old Candler Hospital. Savannah's last great yellow fever epidemic struck in 1876. The disease brought burning fever, failing organs and the black vomit victims dreaded, there was no cure, and thousands died across the city. As the story is told, so many died at the hospital that tunnels were dug beneath it, and the dead were carried out of sight through them at night so as not to panic the city. Some versions claim the tunnels ran on under Forsyth Park as dead-end burial chambers, so that weddings and children's games now take place above forgotten graves.
Ghost tours still stop outside, and the old grounds and the edge of the park have a reputation for paranormal activity. Many find it hard to walk past the old hospital at night without thinking of the people who came here in that terrible season hoping for a miracle.
Tips
- This is viewed from the street: please respect the residents and the property.
- Hours and admission change: check the official website before you go.
- Featured on 3 ghost tours; see the links below.
