Katy Hospital

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In 1865 the Union Pacific Southern Branch was first incorporated and combined smaller lines to create a vast railway throughout Kansas. Soon after its incorporation, the line was extended into Indian Territory, today being Oklahoma. In a stride to grow even further the railway was renamed the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway Company to clearly outline the railroads’ aspirations of expanding. This name morphed into “The Katy” over the years. A charter was granted by Kansas and approved by the Texas Legislature on August 2, 1870. Parsons, Kansas was one of the division points for the MKT Railroad and was named after Judge Levi Parsons who at the time was President of the company.

The Katy Railroad Employees’ Hospital Association (KREHA) was charted in 1913. Employees paid dues ranging from 55 cents to $1.75 per month which covered medical and surgical treatment. These dues which over the years increased also helped construct hospitals. In February 1920 Parsons Kansas was announced as the location for a new $200,000 Katy Hospital. Funds for purchasing the $17,500 piece of property were raised through local donations, gathering over $7,000 in less than a year. But unable to raise all the funds locally, the association agreed that if the Parsons residents could raise half that the association would pay the other half.

Clyde H. Griesenbeck of Dallas became an architect for The Katy in 1917 and drew up the plans for the new hospital in Parsons. Construction officially started in 1921 after the $220,537 contract was awarded to General Contractor H. Barbour and would go on for the next year. The building was not completed and furnished and open until April 2, 1923. The Katy Hospital was strictly used by employees of the Katy Railroad and their families but was prepared to be open to the public in the instance of calamities and epidemics.

With the hundreds of Katy railroad workers in Parsons, the hospital was never slow and just three years after opening purchased $5,000 worth of new equipment to better serve patients. Not only were the patients well taken care of, but the Katy Railroad Employees’ Hospital Association (KREHA) felt it was also important to take care of their staff as well. In July 1927 a $25,000 nurses’ dormitory was approved by the KREHA and in less than 7 months the building was completed being put into use in January 1928. With seven rooms, one for each of the nurses, a kitchenette, and a reception room the nurses working long hours could feel comfortable and get much-needed rest.

But turmoil came in the forties when it was announced the hospital board would curtail service at the Katy Hospital and talks of consolidating the Parsons and Denison Hospital’s sparked protests. Neither Parsons nor Denison employees wanted either hospital to close and immediately made their stance on the matter very clear during board meetings.

The association set aside $40,000 to make improvements to both hospitals. But the Katy Railroad did not have plans to stay in Parsons and wanted to move all operations to Denison. With little to no warning, the MKT Railroad moved more than half a dozen departments in two weeks. President William N. Deramus III noted losses of half a million in the first two months of 1957 as the reason for the move to keep their heads above water.

The KEHA broke ties with the railroad to become its own entity juggling to deal with left recurring deficits and administrative burdens.  The association started discussing leasing the hospital for a nominal sum to the city or county. After thorough discussions, the county took over and leased the hospital to the KEHA for just $1 a year. In 1958 renovations to the nurse’s dormitory converted it into a home for the hospital’s administrator. Shortly after this conversion, it was becoming increasingly clear that a decision would need to be made soon on whether or not to convert the facility into a general hospital.

In the late 1960s, a public clinic was started at the Katy Hospital from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday by Dr. William C. Simmons the general practitioner. In 1973 the name was changed to Katy Memorial Hospital. The same year outpatient clinic services started with Tuesday night walk-ins by Dr. John Mekis. After such success with the clinic program, an actual clinic building was constructed in early 1976 with offices for six doctors and a pharmacy. Even after all of these renovations and improvements, the hospital struggled in the mid-1980s, as did many other rural hospitals during the time.  Even with the major cutbacks on spending the hospital couldn’t keep up, on December 10, 1984, the Katy Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees voted to cease operations and close the hospital with the exception of the Katy Clinic.

By April 5^th the hospital was officially closed but the KEHA wasted no time in trying to find another entity to take over the lease. The nearby Labette County Medical Center which had been a twenty-year-long competitor of the Katy Hospital was one of the first to be brought into the discussion. After eight months of deliberation, LCMC purchased the former MKT Hospital, Katy Clinic, and Administrators House for $1 million. On August 19, 1985, workers began to transform the old Katy Memorial Hospital into the Behavioral Medicine Center for LCMC. The forty-bed facility would be used exclusively for psychiatry and drug and alcohol treatment. It would be run jointly by LCMC and Behavioral Health System of Houston.

The Behavioral Medicine Center originally functioned under an acute care license issued by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Within a few months the license was changed to a psychiatric license issued by SRS. It was this change that made the center not eligible to receive reimbursement for the Medicare and Medicaid patients receiving treatment there. LCMC and its partner stood firm that the center was entitled to the acute care license and reimbursement with no success. This caused James Usdan, the president of the Behavioral Health System, to become increasingly frustrated with the state. He then made the destructive decision to kick all of the Medicare and Medicaid patients to the curb in an attempt to “resolve” the financial situation.  The decision was made without LCMC’s knowledge or approval, causing a rift between the partners. The rift led to BHS withdrawing from its joint contract with LCMC and leaving them to temporarily run the center alone. But a new relationship with a much closer entity was branched. On October 22, 1987, LCMC signed an official contract with Health Concepts IV of Cedar Vale.

After the contract expired the following year there was a failure to renegotiate a new one. For the next three months they would carry on until in early December the announcement that had been avoided for decades came. The Behavioral Medicine Center, formerly known as the Katy Hospital, would close on December 31, 1988, as a result of insufficient finances. The former hospital building was used off and on by different entities for the next decade but was ultimately fully abandoned by the 2000s.

On January 31, 2008, the Hospital, Clinic, and Nurses Home were all listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2016 the Katy Hospital Historical Society was created in an attempt to fight for the preservation of the hospital. Numerous repairs were made including new locks, a new roof, security lights, new windows to replace those that were broken and other much needed repairs. President Calvin Schnoebelen created “Project Fear”, a haunted house hosted inside the hospital and clinic annually, as a fundraiser to keep up with the costs of the building. “Project Fear is a local fundraiser which is used to raise money for local groups in the community. They help with the fundraiser, so we donate all the money back to the people that helped,” Schnoebelen explained. Multiple events have been thrown over the years including an open house, horror movie nights for high schoolers, an escape insanity room, ghost hunters, seek and survive and even a music video for a Dallas rock band. The former Katy Hospital continues to be used for Project Fear, receiving guests each year, nothing like her glory days but enjoying the attention all the same.

This location is monitored by 24/7 surveillance and local police. Do not enter unless you have permission to do so.

Gallery Below of the Katy Hospital

To Read A Fully Detailed History, Former Patient/Staff Stories, and See 50+ Exclusive High-Quality Pictures Click Here to Order ‘Abandoned Kansas: Healthcare in the Heartland’

(The pictures included below are not indicative of the pictures included in the book above, pictures of all the awesome things included at this property can be seen exclusively in my book!)

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