The building sat empty, attracting stories of terrible malpractice and lurid misbehavior. From then on the building operated as a drug rehab facility, but the state closed it in 1992. The hospital closed in 1986, says current caretaker Stephanie Mayfield, after a new facility opened in nearby Cuero. Originally built in the 1950s and managed by the Felician Sisters of the Roman Catholic Church, the sprawling facility contains two main floors, a basement, two wings, a chapel, and an observation tower. Inside the building, a cool breeze wafts down the dark hallway, leaves press against dusty windows, and wasps crawl along the walls. Broken windows lead into a black interior the door is chained shut. Dare you go? –MM Packįrom the outside, Yorktown Memorial Hospital looks like the definition of “haunted”: a 30,000-square-foot building with a granite and concrete façade and overgrown bushes around its sides. Word is the most auspicious times to see the light are on moonless autumn nights. A pretty road through the woods in the daytime turns into a spooky spot for supernatural sightings by night. In 1997, Hardin County designated Bragg Road as Ghost Road Scenic Drive Park. Texas folklorist Francis Abernethy documented sighting stories from old-timers and young folks alike. National Geographic published a clear photo of the light in a 1974 feature about the Big Thicket. In the 1960s, Archer Fullingim, iconoclast editor of The Kountze News, spread its notoriety in articles. The road replaced the railroad tracks in 1934, but the light remained, seen by hundreds of people over the decades. But all the stories share a common theme-a floating orb of light. From its inception, locals considered the line haunted by Mexican laborers murdered by a thieving foreman a recalcitrant deserter shot by Confederate soldiers a hunter lost forever in the woods and a decapitated railroad brakeman searching for his head. Before the current road was built, the arrow-straight clearing served as Santa Fe Railroad’s branch line built in 1903.
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