The history of the Indiana State Sanatorium is a deep and multi-layered story, beginning with a fight against one of the deadliest diseases of the early 20th century and ending as a site of tragic modern mystery.

The establishment of the Sanatorium was a direct response to the public health crisis of tuberculosis, or the "White Plague." The 65th Indiana General Assembly approved the creation and funding for a state-run tuberculosis hospital on March 8, 1907, with construction beginning that year on a vast, 504-acre campus near Rockville, Indiana. The facility was strategically designed as a self-sufficient community, a small city unto itself, built to minimize contact between patients and the outside world.

The site included its own power plant and coal mine, a dairy and chicken farm, a bakery and laundry, a school, a dentist, and a staff of doctors and nurses who lived on-site. The guiding philosophy of treatment was simple: fresh air, rest, and nourishing food. Patients would often spend days and nights on open-air porches, regardless of the weather, in the belief that clean air would halt the progression of the disease. While a place of isolation, it was also one of hope, and many patients in the early stages were successfully "cured."

As medical science advanced, particularly with the introduction of new antibiotics in the 1940s and 1950s, the need for sanatoriums waned. Tuberculosis became manageable, and by 1968, the Indiana State Sanatorium closed its doors as a TB hospital.

The property was abandoned for several years before it reopened in 1976 as the Lee Alan Bryant Health Care Center, a combination nursing home and private mental hospital. This facility operated for over three decades, but its history during this period became clouded by misfortune. Facing multiple lawsuits, including allegations of wrongful death and malpractice, the center was shut down suddenly in 2011. The closure was so abrupt that patients were transferred without notice, and a significant amount of medical equipment, furniture, and personal belongings were left behind.

The sheer weight of suffering and loss at the Sanatorium is palpable, manifesting in persistent paranormal activity. Many visitors report an unsettling, pervasive sensation of being watched as they move through the deserted rooms, often accompanied by intense emotional energies—overwhelming feelings of sadness, fear, or anxiety localized to specific areas.

The most notorious activity often centers on specific figures and locations. In the massive Adams Hall, phantom footsteps are regularly heard, echoing up and down the stairwells as if staff or patients are still making their rounds. Elsewhere, the chilling soundscape includes disembodied voices and whispers captured on recording equipment, but even more disturbing are the residual echoes of the White Plague itself: the sounds of coughing and wheezing, suggesting the lost souls of patients are still checked in.

Investigators and guests alike often report glimpses of shadow figures, fleeting dark shapes moving just at the periphery of vision in the long, shadowy corridors. More tangible are the reports of the "Doctor's Ghost," a spectral figure said to haunt the halls, eternally bound to the sick and still making his rounds in the dark. This activity is often accompanied by inexplicable cold spots—dramatic and sudden temperature drops felt deep within the abandoned patient wards and the extensive, miles-long network of steam tunnels beneath the buildings.

Finally, one area famous for its activity is the laundry room. Even when the facility was operational, workers reported baffling poltergeist activity there, with items being moved, objects tossed across the room, and machines activating themselves. This disturbance is often tied to the apparition of a woman seen wandering the campus, possibly a former worker still clocking in for her eternal shift.ion