NEGAUNEE — It’s that time for ghosts and goblins. And I found this story at the museum and thought this is the season to bring it out. It was written back in 2008 by Mining Journal reporter Miriam Moeller.

A fall sun peeks through gray clouds that hover over a lonely field. There are two brick houses that loom at the edge. Behind them is a root cellar and some run down storage sheds with smokestacks reaching for the sky. Among the pieces of scrap metal, an old glass pharmacy jar in the tall grass.

Once this place in Negaunee Township was home to children and adults suffering from tuberculosis. Today some people say only the ghosts of the patients at Morgan Heights remain. and ghosts are there indeed, according to the residents who used to live in the nurse’s dormitory, which was one of the two brick rental houses, from the year 2000 until 2002.

The hospital had just been torn down, and the new residents thought it was beautiful and seemed to be the perfect place for a family of four. It turned out not to be the perfect place for this family. It didn’t occur for a week, but every morning around 4 and 5 a.m. they would hear footsteps going up and down the stairs.

The mom got up and checked on the family, thinking that the children, ages 4 and 6 at the time were making noises. However, no one was there and everyone in the house was asleep. Not one to believe in ghosts she didn’t think much of it until strange things started happening. The TV was always on when they got home, adding that maybe the cat stepped on the remote. There was a cold spot in the kitchen that never changed in temperature no matter the season.

The 1911 tuberculosis sanitarium called Morgan Heights off Marquette County Road 492 is said to be haunted by former patients — many of them children. It was a place where people with infectious diseases went for fresh air and good nutrition. (Journal file photos)

Maybe that could be explained too. The noises persisted and other people, like the babysitter, began to hear them too. As well as the man of the house who had a strange experience, but didn’t want to talk about it. Looking at the history of Morgan Heights,later called Acocks Medical Facility, it is not surprising that people claim it as haunted. Built in 1911, it was the first tuberculosis sanitarium in the Upper Peninsula with two small brick buildings with wide porches.

In 1915, an addition was built to allow thirty patients to live there during their treatment, which was often years long. In 1927, another addition and a superintendent’s cottage, the bigger brick house still remains. The hospital was sued for the first time for medical  malpractice in 1931 after a drainage tube disappeared inside a surgical patient. Alfred Rytkonen died shortly after. Renamed Acocks Medical Care Facility, the hospital lost its license because the old sanitarium did not have all the required facilities. After sitting vacant for a long time, O’Dovero Properties bought Morgan Heights for $120,000 in 1995.

Two residences, the director’s cottage and a nurse’s dormitory became rental properties. The former  Morgan Heights hospital was torn down sometime between 1995 and 2002. Many people reporte spooky sightings when wandering in the old hospital before it was torn down. It has been said that the hospital had a morgue and a crematorium. Morgan Heights also had an underground tunnel system connecting all buildings.

Tunnels going from one brick house to another have been blocked off by cement walls. One day someone’s dogs got trapped in the tunnel and the resident could hear the barking through the living room floor. In the winter you can see where the tunnels are because the snow melts differently. It’s a strange piece of property. After those residents moved out the new residents saw a man standing in a red flannel shirt in the basement.

The Ray family said it took them two years to decide about the ghost, but said, “I know it was real.”  Happy Halloween!