The smell of years of death is upon you.
The halls are old and creep as you walk toward the chambers where the injured of World War II lived.
You stop halfway and look down a long corridor surrounded by boxes of unknown substance.
You turn back and walk toward a large fish tank and then you see it -- the room where the dead rested.
You walk through another door and you see it:
THE MORGUE.
The morgue is not part of any tour given by The U of M, but it is there.
Biology professor Bill Gutzke said there are many stories about the morgue.
"There are holes in the floors and walls of the morgue," Gutzke said. "The building is unusually designed.
"The morgue was part of a former hospital that occupied the space now known as The University of Memphis' South Campus," he said.
According to the historical marker located on South Campus, the hospital was a U.S. Army hospital that opened on Jan. 23, 1943, and treated 44,000 combat veterans during World War II.
According to the historical marker, the hospital was named for Gen. James M. Kennedy, a distinguished Army surgeon and veteran of both the Spanish-American War and World War I. The hospital was turned over to the Veterans Administration in 1946.
The property became the South Campus in 1967, for what was then Memphis State University.
Gutzke said the facility is now used for research on fish, including catfish and other species.
Foggy windows and tanks of smelly fish inhabit the rooms. Boxes, buckets and supplies scatter the place.
The former hospital is divided into four sections.
Upon entering, one is greeted by a hall running from one end to the other. The eastern part of the building contains the former morgue. One can see where the bodies were placed on the slabs and pushed into vaults in the wall. Some of the doors are still attached to the vaults and cobwebs and bugs live in them.
When one enters the western part of the former hospital, he or she will bump into supplies used to take care of the fish.
The fourth section is noisy and smells of ancient funk. The rooms are large and fish tanks surround the walls.
The complex includes a bathroom with a sink, urinal and a rusty toilet smelling of dead animals.
Biology professor Dr. Bill Simco said he has also heard many strange stories about the morgue.
"The building seems to talk to you at night," Simco said. "The wind makes the building creak and moan."
"When we first started to use buildings on the South Campus, we had a group of students from Virginia Commonwealth University stop over here on their way to a biology conference," Simco said. "They spent the night in the 'morgue,' sleeping on stretcher cots left there from World War II."
"When I encountered these students at meetings years later, they still remember the experience," Simco said.
Simco said he used to take his dog into the building and the dog would immediately start to lay flat on his belly and look wildly as if some unknown danger was getting ready to occur.
"I wish I knew what he senses about the building," Simco said.
A wet, musty crawl space is found underneath the morgue. The plumbing for the fish tanks is located in this area and the space is big enough to stand up in.
Simco said he has not had the nerve to look under the morgue.
"Part of the building was used as a brace shop, where artificial limbs were made," Simco said. "When we first occupied these buildings it was not uncommon to be walking down the halls at night and be surprised by an 'arm' or a 'leg' sticking out from some cabinet or from underneath a counter."
Gutzke said when the Veterans Hospital first opened, the name of the street was changed.
"The street was called Shotwell Road," Gutzke said. "The name was changed to Getwell because the administration at the hospital didn't want the patients to be affected by the name Shotwell."
Simco said the building is in bad shape and potentially dangerous.
"The floors are weak," Simco said. "The overall environment is plain dangerous.
"I am sure the spirits of the many graduate students that did their dissertation research in the morgue still haunt the building."
