Poker Ghosts and a Woman in White: The White Sanitarium

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 13, 2026 · How we verify

Drive through Wichita Falls and the White Sanitarium does not announce itself. There is no plaque, no gift shop, no ticket booth. What this North Texas building has instead is a second life in local storytelling: a former mental health facility whose halls are said to hold onto the people who passed through them. The ghost stories are plentiful and the paper trail is thin, and any honest account of the place has to say both things in the same breath.

Quick Orientation for the White Sanitarium

• Where: Wichita Falls, in north central Texas
• What it was: a mental health facility, reported to have opened in 1926
• Associated name: Dr. Frank S. White, credited in local accounts as its founder
• Closure: said to have shut in the 1950s after years of neglect and structural damage
• Now: renovated and converted into apartment units
• Reported activity: a woman in white, figures in hospital gowns, lights in unpowered rooms, phantom card players
• Status for visitors: private residential property, not an attraction

The Frank S. White Years and a Kinder Kind of Asylum

The version of the story that circulates in Wichita Falls gives the sanitarium a 1926 opening and Dr. Frank S. White as its founder, with the institution also referred to in retellings as the State Lunatic Asylum. That double naming is the first sign that the popular history here has been passed hand to hand rather than pulled from records, and readers should hold the details loosely.

What the local account emphasizes is the philosophy. White is described as running a facility that encouraged patients to move around and to spend time with one another, an approach that ran against the grain of institutional practice in the 1920s. The building is said to have included a communal living area, a library and a recreation room, features that only make sense if patients were expected to use them. In an era when confinement was often the entire program, that is the part of the story worth taking seriously, because it explains why the sanitarium is remembered at all.

The same history does not pretend the place was gentle throughout. Electroshock therapy and lobotomies are both attached to the sanitarium’s record, procedures that were mainstream in their day and are regarded now as brutal. Dr. White is said to have retired in 1931, only five years after the doors opened, and the institution he built did not hold its shape for long afterward.

Decades of Neglect, Then Apartments

What followed White’s departure, by every local account, was slow decay. The building deteriorated across the following decades and closed in the 1950s, with structural damage given as the reason. That left an empty institutional shell in a residential city, which is the single most reliable ingredient in an American ghost story. Abandoned hospitals accumulate legends the way they accumulate broken glass.

The final chapter is more prosaic. In recent years the structure has been renovated and divided into apartment units, so that the rooms tourists imagine as wards are now somebody’s living room. That matters practically, and it matters to the stories too, because a good share of the reported phenomena date from the years when the building stood empty and anyone could see what they liked through a dark window.

The Woman in White and the Poker Game in the Recreation Room

None of the following is documented. These are reported experiences, repeated by visitors and ghost hunters, and there is no verified death, incident or investigation behind any of them.

• A woman in white. The most persistent figure here, described as walking the grounds or standing at an upper window looking out. She has no name attached and no story explaining her.
• Figures in hospital gowns. Shapes glimpsed inside the building, identified as patients on the strength of what they appear to be wearing.
• Lights in rooms with no electricity. A staple of the abandoned years, and one worth weighing against reflected headlights, flashlights carried by trespassers and the simple fact that people expect to see something.
• Card players in the old recreation room. Apparitions said to be mid poker game, which is a strikingly specific claim and one that fits neatly with the sanitarium’s reputation for communal spaces.
• A child’s voice and a bicycle horn. Sounds reported at a distance, indoors and out.
• Moving orbs during the small hours. Described as glowing and drifting, and interpreted by those who report them as former patients. Orb photographs are the least reliable category of paranormal evidence there is, and dust, insects and moisture on a lens account for most of them.

What is missing from the White Sanitarium’s folklore is a named ghost tied to a documented tragedy. There is no recorded fire, no massacre, no notorious death on the premises in anything publicly available. The stories are free floating, which makes them harder to debunk and equally harder to credit.

Visiting the White Sanitarium in Wichita Falls

Set expectations low. This is not a museum and not a tour stop. The building has been converted into apartments, which means the halls where the poker players are said to sit are private residences with residents in them. There is no admission, no guide and no after hours investigation on any public calendar.

The reasonable approach is to view the exterior from the public street, treat it as architecture with a difficult past, and leave the residents alone. Entering the property, photographing through windows or turning up at the so called witching hour with a recorder is trespassing, and it is the fastest way to get the whole subject shut down for everyone else. If you want the history rather than the thrill, Wichita Falls has local historical resources that will serve you better than a walk around the block, and they will also tell you which parts of the legend hold up.

Sources

• SANITARIUM
• Worth Watching: Indie Horror Triptych 'Sanitarium' Red Band Trailer
• Q&A: Ortiz, Ramirez & Valderrama on their time in the "SANITARIUM"
• SANITARIUM DVD REVIEW
• AICN HORROR looks at VENDETTA! OPEN GRAVE! SANITARIUM! NIGHTMARE CITY! INSIDIOUS 2! CASSADAGA! ZOMBIE HAMLET! BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO!
• Wikipedia: Sanitarium (film)

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