The Ghosts of the Union Station Hotel

It has been a long week and one of the many things I have fallen behind on this week is my blog.   Working in healthcare often comes in waves.  Sickness spreads and the hospitals fill.  Sadness also seems to come in waves and attempted suicides fill the beds on the little psychiatric floor I work on with sorrow and despair.  It makes for long days.

I do many groups during the day.  I talk alot about coping skills and how to dig your way out of depression and despair.  My favorite group is on the power of joy.  The power of clinging to the things you enjoy and making sure that even if life is hard, there is something you look forward to at the end of the day, the week, the month.  There always has to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  There always has to be a light in the dark or you just give up.  For me,  my lights are my journeys and my writing.   Every trip brings a new adventure,  even if it is only a trip to rural Alabama to find an obscure ghost story.   My next light comes in the form of another haunted hotel.   They are my favorite.  My sons enjoy them too and when there are ghosts in the closet the journey becomes something even more wonderful.

So this month I am going to Nashville, Tennesse to the beautiful Union Station.   The Station has been converted to a luxurious hotel.   The structure is limestone and is built in classic Romanesque style by H.H Richardson.  It was commissioned by the Louisville &Nashville Railroad and opened in 1900.  It features some rare and extradordinary features such as 128 panels of stained glass, bas-relief sculpture,s and two alligator ponds.  In addition to this,  it is haunted by a menagerie of ghosts.

A psychic I spoke with about train stations once told me that places that were connected with waiting and strong emotion in life, often maintain this importance in death.  Old train stations can become gathering places for the spirits.  This train station appears to be no different.  Of course, this station is made even more haunted by the tragic train wreck that occured here in 1918.  Spectral visitations have been plentiful since this wreck.  Many visitors to Union Station describe odd laughter, banging noises, moving objects, and strange smells.  Several floors of the hotel appear to be haunted and those that spend several nights in the hotel often report hearing and seeing ghosts.  Hopefully, my visit will be filled with many such experiences.