Guinea Pigs, Not Ghosts

 

Source: Office of Laboratory Services

Back during the summer of 1937, children in Charleston's East End were convinced they had a haunted building in their neighborhood. While playing near the West Virginia Department of Health's laboratory building, located at the end of McClung Street, near the statehouse, the children heard terrifying noises. Emitting from the lab were "frightful squeals" and "awesome thumps." Further, the children noticed an eerie light that would turn itself off and on throughout the night. 

The kids eagerly told their parents all about these spooky goings-on, and to their credit, the concerned parents believed them, and sought answers as to who, or what, could be haunting the laboratory. And then, in stepped the voice of reason. Mrs. Katherine Cox, head of the laboratory, offered an explanation. The squeals were not squeals of tortured spirits---they were the squeals of guinea pigs. The weird thumping? That was the rabbits thumping their hind legs within their cages. But what about the light that turned itself on and off? Well, that was an incubator light that flashed in regular intervals. 

Both children and parents seemed appeased by this explanation, and the matter of a haunted health department was dropped. The health department, which was established in 1881 by an act of legislature, was housed at 1812 McClung St. from 1928 until 1954, with an adjoining seven-room residential home providing additional laboratory space, starting in 1936. Mrs. Katherine Cox was head of the laboratory from 1934 until 1940. It was under her directorship that the animals in question were probably used for both rabies and tuberculosis inoculation research. 

Today, the location of the former laboratory is a parking lot for state capitol employees. I have to wonder whether those leaving their cars in the lot ever hear an unexplained squeal or thump....and simply chalk it up to traffic noises coming from the nearby interstate.

Source: Office of Laboratory Services

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
24 August 1937