Sheboygan Asylum

Known (incorrectly) as the Sheboygan Asylum, the abandoned Sheboygan County Comprehensive Health Care Center in Sheboygan Falls is one of Wisconsin’s most recognizable and controversial haunted locations. While the actual asylum, the Sheboygan County Hospital for the Insane, operated in the city of Sheboygan and was demolished in 1960, the imposing complex of this old hospital that rises above the isolated countryside has plenty of dark and haunted history of its own.

The hospital that still stands today was built in 1940 as a modern county health care center, providing treatment for elderly residents, people with mental illness, and individuals with developmental disabilities. During World War II, it was temporarily requisitioned by the US Military from 1944-1945 and converted into Camp Sheboygan, housing German and Italian prisoners of war who worked on nearby farms before the facility returned to medical service. Over the following decades, it evolved into a psychiatric hospital, rehabilitation center, and long-term care facility before closing permanently in 2002.

Long before the building was abandoned, employees shared stories of unexplained activity inside its halls. Those accounts, combined with the decaying appearance of the sprawling hospital, transformed the property into one of Wisconsin’s most infamous paranormal legends. The abandoned Sheboygan haunted asylum attracted generations of thrill seekers and urban explorers, many of whom were arrested for trespassing before the property later opened for organized paranormal investigations and haunted tours. The location gained national attention after appearing on the paranormal series Destination Fear in 2020, where investigators explored the tunnels, surgical center, and morgue and captured what they believed to be a towering shadow figure in a tunnel deep beneath the hospital.

Reported Paranormal Activity

• Visitors have reported hearing a young girl humming in otherwise silent hallways.
• Witnesses describe being touched, having their hair pulled, or feeling unseen hands brush against them.
• Loud bangs, slamming doors, whispers, screams, and unexplained voices have frequently been reported throughout the building.
• Local legends claim numerous nurses died by suicide while working at the hospital, with some investigators believing their spirits still remain.
• Shadow figures have been reported throughout the property, particularly in the underground tunnels featured on Destination Fear.
• Investigators commonly report an overwhelming sense of being watched, especially near the morgue, treatment areas, and basement corridors.