Yorktown Memorial Hospital, Texas: Ghosts, Real History and Tours

Yorktown is a small town in DeWitt County, about 75 miles southeast of San Antonio. On West Main Street stands its old hospital: a two-story brown brick building with an arched entrance and the words YORKTOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL carved above the door. The Felician Sisters, a Catholic order, ran it from 1951 until it closed in the 1980s.

Since then it has become a magnet for ghost hunters, thanks to stories of violent nuns, a little girl called Stacy, a murderous doctor and a boiler room double killing, and to an episode of Ghost Adventures. Researchers who checked the town’s newspapers say almost none of those stories has any record behind them. This guide tells the stories, sets out the real history, and explains the current dispute between the owners and the city, which decides whether you can get in at all.

The real history of Yorktown Memorial Hospital

Its name is usually said to honor local people who died in World War II. The hospital opened on March 25, 1951, at a cost of about $500,000. It started as a 27-bed hospital with ten doctors and nine nuns. The Felician Sisters, a Franciscan order, staffed it for its whole life, and research into its finances suggests it could not have survived without them: the sisters were paid far below normal rates, sometimes months late. The building covered about 30,000 square feet, with offices, two wings of patient rooms, a chapel, a second floor and a basement.

It was never a busy place. Occupancy topped 60 percent in only seven of its 33 years, and it closed in the 1980s. The building was then used as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, which the state reportedly shut down because it could not keep its patients contained. After that it stood empty.

Later private owners opened it for tours. The building appeared on Ghost Adventures in its fourth season (2010 to 2011), and later on Travel Channel’s It Feels Evil. The city has repeatedly clashed with owners over code violations; it forced an earlier owner to close it in 2010 and cited the owner again in 2018, when tours stopped.

Twin brothers Fred and Steve Garza-Guzman of San Antonio, who run Curious Twins Paranormal, bought the hospital in 2025. Within two months, on August 22, 2025, the city posted a notice declaring it unsafe for occupancy. A city inspector’s October 16 report listed ten deficiencies, called it a public nuisance and warned it was liable to partly or fully collapse. On November 17, 2025, after a packed public hearing, the city council tabled condemnation. The owners resumed tours as a membership program and commissioned an engineer, who found the building “sound, stable and safe for its current use”. In 2026 the city said it was still reviewing that report, and the mayor told the local paper the building is “not haunted or historical”.

The ghost stories of Yorktown Memorial Hospital

The nuns

The most famous story is that the Felician Sisters never left, and that they are not gentle. Visitors claim to have been scratched, choked or rushed at, especially in the chapel, and local belief says the nuns particularly dislike people with tattoos. KSAT’s reporters, who explored the building, repeated that belief and described feeling watched in the chapel.

The real sisters, as far as records show, were underpaid, hardworking nurses who kept a small-town hospital going. Their reputation as angry ghosts says more about horror movies than about them.

Stacy and The Poky Little Puppy

The hospital’s gentlest ghost is a girl called Stacy, said to be about eight, who loved having the nuns read her The Poky Little Puppy. Investigators read the book aloud in the old library to draw her out, roll balls for her to roll back, and set battery-powered dolls in a bedroom near labor and delivery, which some say laugh or speak on request. KSAT’s crew said a doll seemed to talk as they walked away.

No death notice for a young girl appears in the local papers, and no Stacy is known from the records.

The doctor, Doug Richards and TJ

Older versions of this page told of a very elderly doctor who supposedly cut a patient’s throat during thyroid surgery, a mechanic called Doug Richards said to have died there in 1973, and a young rehab patient, TJ, said to have died on the back steps after no one answered the bell. A researcher who went through DeWitt County newspapers for a Travel Channel investigation found no report of any of these deaths, no malpractice case against the doctor, and articles he wrote for medical journals instead. We have dropped the doctor’s name: there is no evidence he did anything wrong.

The boiler room killings

The darkest story is of a love triangle that ended in a double stabbing in the boiler room, with blood still on the walls. No double homicide was ever reported. The researcher suggests any stains date from after the hospital closed, perhaps from a trespasser or an injury during maintenance.

How many people died here?

You will read that 500 patients died in six years, or 2,000 overall. Neither figure holds up. The hospital admitted about 19,500 patients between 1951 and 1983, so 2,000 deaths would mean one patient in ten, which the researcher calls statistically impossible; her estimate is most likely fewer than 100 deaths. Whatever people feel in the building today, she argues, comes from what happened to it after it closed: decades of neglect, trespassing and dark stories.

Where to look

• The chapel: where the nun stories are centered and where visitors most often say they feel watched.
• The basement hallways: where Stacy is said to play and where the boiler room is.
• Labor and delivery and the toy room: home of the dolls and of reported screams.
• The old ER and operating rooms: known for shadow figures on camera.
• The library: where investigators read The Poky Little Puppy.

Visiting Yorktown Memorial Hospital

The hospital is private property, and its status can change quickly. In August 2025 the city declared it unsafe and banned public entry. Since then the owners, Curious Twins Paranormal, have run tours and investigations as a members-only program while they work with the city and pursue historic designation. The city’s position, as of 2026, was that it was still reviewing the owners’ engineering report.

If you want to go inside, check Curious Twins Paranormal’s website for current tours and membership, and look for recent local news before you travel. Never try to enter without permission: it is trespassing, and the city has warned of structural risks. You can see the front of the building from West Main Street.

Haunted Rooms does not run events here. If you want to investigate a historic building with our team, see our nearest ghost hunts below.

• Visiting Privately owned; members-only tours and investigations while the city reviews the building’s safety
• Tours Membership-based tours and investigations run by the owners, Curious Twins Paranormal
• Ghost hunting Members-only investigations run by the owners; the city declared the building unsafe in 2025 and was still reviewing it in 2026

Tips for your visit

• Read the real history before you go: knowing which stories are legend makes the night more interesting, not less.
• Bring a good flashlight and sturdy shoes; the building is dark, dusty and in poor repair.
• If you have tattoos and believe the nun stories, the chapel is where to test them.
• Make a day of it with a walk along Yorktown’s old Main Street.

More haunted places nearby

• Victoria's Black Swan Inn: home of the Texas Paranormal Fest
• San Antonio State Hospital: another Texas hospital with a long haunted reputation
• Haunted hotels in San Antonio: where to stay for a haunted night
• Haunted places in Texas
• Haunted places in San Antonio

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: Yorktown Memorial Hospital
• KSAT: Haunted hospital shut down by South Texas city (2025)
• DeWitt County Today: Truce possible between Yorktown officials and hospital owners
• DeWitt County Today: Engineer assesses Yorktown Memorial Hospital building safe
• DeWitt County Today: Yorktown mayor says hospital not haunted; city still assessing safety
• Celina Summers: Paranormal fact checks, the real history of Yorktown Memorial Hospital (2019)
• KSAT: Is this abandoned South Texas hospital really empty?
• Curious Twins Paranormal (owners' site)