Looking out of the labs at the company garages.
history under ground
windows
Sluice tables stretch into the darkness.
One of the few windows that escaped steel plating the last time the hospital was sealed tight to let nature roam within.
Above the offices is this little section of factory that still has strips of wood flooring. This may be where the upholstery was cut.
On the top floor of one of the old wards, the slanted roofline makes the this group room more claustrophobic. Portra 160.
Looking from the powerhouse across to the old Electrical Assembly side of the plant that manufactured products like thermostats. Most of the complex is connected by skyway and tunnel systems.
Frontenac’s shaft house is well preserved, compared to all other around it. Leica/Summilux 35/Ektar 100
Not a part of the Foundry, but the Enclosed Body Building. The rebar welded over the windows and the rust patterns with the lighting makes this geometric photos one of my favorites from the year.
Looking from the mill at the old transfer elevator’s steel tanks.
The Sun Rooms, or Common Rooms, reminded me of the Panopitcon turned inside-out.
Above my head while taking this picture was the seal of the Department of the Interior.
This is one of the modern nurse’s stations where the last inpatients lived in the mid-2000s. The windows are thick shatterproof plastic. I am unsure why the suspended ceiling is missing.
In an era where smoking was ubiquitous and sexy, smoking stations had to be a part of the job, even at an explosives factory.
West Elevation of the Depot. Ektar 100/Mamiya 6
This bay would host boxcars as workers would fill them with the fruits of the factory.
Looking through the old brewhouse toward the Keg Wash House.
In the middle of the foundry, an office is untouched by scrappers, legal and not. Inside, warnings and catalogs for machines that are gone, obsolete, and melted down.
Looking from one workhouse at another, with the other residents of Mill Hell falling into place as the distance grows. Across the rail yard you can see Froedert Malt elevator and Calumet.
One of my favorite shots of the headhouse at the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool #4, with one seagull threading the needle. The socket holes on the frame got blown out thanks to my bad developing, but I like the effect. Arista 100.
Different colors stained the small panes on the top floor. For once, it seemed more ridiculous to not be inside an abandoned factory.
An insurance office.
Looking out of a door to nowhere at the fiery sky above.
A familiar scene in Control Tower B, though the microphone has not been used for years.
Shuttered windows on the side of one of the collapsing bonded warehouses.
The turbine hall sported a beautiful Whiting gantry crane.
I can confirm the existence of the long-rumored Federal Rectangle Research Institute labs.
I really like the way this high-ceilinged room is decaying. Well, decayed. It’s demolished now.
A closeup of a high window in Bunge.
One of my favorite visual feature of grain elevators, especially big ones, is how they repeat.
In the distance, the San Haven Sanatorium water tower.
From atop a concrete slap that seals the old path of Mine Shaft #3, I loop up into the hoisting room.
Sheet metal over the windows. A red boot sole in the tumbleweeds. Is it inside, or outside?
One of Martinsdale’s defunct businesses perpendicular to the depot. Recall that Martinsdale is a T-town.
A pipe bracket seems to have rusted off of the ceiling.
In the barracks.
Since this picture was taken, the roof has totally collapsed in this area.
The sun shining through one of the buildings; everything was overgrown.
Birch shadows on stone walls… have you been looking at my Christmas list?
The world’s biggest paper machine was installed here about a century before this photo was taken. The orange in the windows is the brick building across the street–the new part of the plant.
Everyone loves water towers.
The common rooms bulge out of the institutional geometry of the wards.
Between two brick buildings is a metal one with many windows set into it. Having been in many mills of similar design, I conjecture that this was the milling building, where machines ground the corn before it was boiled.
After crushing, these machines would float lighter material to the surface of the water, where it would be skimmed and discarded. Gold and silver laden stone would sink to the bottom, where it was collected for the next stage of processing. Leica/Summilux 35/Ektar 100
The front of the power plant (right), the distillery itself (center), and the regaling house (left).
In its last years, the church had a congregation of only about 100. It opened with 1.700…
The Osborne Mercantile reflected in Twohy Mercantile’s eastern windows, minutes before subset. The current owner has done a fair job replacing broken windows with plexiglass to keep the elements out.
An observation room, possibly for children, has drapes around a 2-way mirror. You know, to dress up the fact that someone could be watching anonymously on the other side.
The mostly-empty distilling room is easy to spot from the outside because of the distinctive round window.
This “pit” would allow workers to crawl below locomotives to service them.
The sun unzipped the clouds. Mist blew across the harbor.
This wide skyway connected two of the inner factory buildings, where parts would have to be transported to keep the operation moving, which is why it is much wider than other bridges in the plant.
Connecting the Administration Building to the wards fanning out. Historical photos show cots lining this hallway when the hospital was severely overcrowded. Lit by lightning outside the grounds during a huge thunderstorm.
The Barker turning around before it backed into Tac Harbor to unload coal for Minnesota Power.
Like looking out of an airship.
The old mill (right) and power plant (left) with the new mill behind them.
I wonder when fluorescent lighting was added.
A closeup of one of the winding machines that found itself under a leaky section of roof.
Beside the shaft building are two fans on skids, indicating they were used underground.
The very top of the Administration Tower’s spiral staircase. There’s an old antenna of some kind there, as you can see.
The spiral staircase ends in the basement, where two oil tanks (for the lantern) and a freshwater tank (for the Keeper) were stored. The basement consists of two long arched vaults like this.
The service window in the Administration Tower had seen some abuse, even if it wasn’t so old.
The top of the giant arched windows facing the Mississippi and the swing bridge.
The machine shop today.
Through a section of the tailings boom where mountain winds tore open the sheet metal around the conveyor, I poked my head out.
In the modern control room at the base of the white elevator tower are the electronics that ran the newer building, its rail components and boat-loading component. The superstructure permeates all spaces here, as can be seen with the crossing I-beams in the main office.
The view from the larry, looking out at the overgrowing coke oven top. Papers listed the order of the charges for each oven, noting the sticky doors and persistent leaks. Emergency respirators and rescue gear was stored close, as long exposure to emissions from the rusty hatches could make worker pass out on the top of the ovens.
Taken while standing on the torn outline of a scrapped altar. With my back to the faded outlines of men, books and the Holy Grail, the room seems much lighter.
In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.
They left and took their God with ’em. Doesn’t feel too empty without ‘im, though.
Wide stairs between the ground, the mine shaft, and the dry house.
The Clipper was one of the most popular Packards, but its production was cut short by WWII. Had they produced the car instead of Rolls Royce plane engines I imagine there would might be driving a Packard today, rather than a Ford.
…somebody get the number of that truck! Near the Day Rooms in the Paying Patient ward.
While squatting in the power plant a very powerful storm moved over unforgettable, throwing blasts of lightning across the countryside. The plant got a direct hit, in fact, and the sound of the boom reverberating through the turbine hall is something unforgettable.
The barracks are being reclaimed by nature.
I love the big old industrial windows.
The old offices for the Oberon Elevator are defunct, but seem to be holding up to the brutal prairie snows and winds. Medium Format.
Grimy windows and the other half of the complex trade interests and stares.
Looking into the tunnel system from below the Women’s Ward. The tunnels were used mostly by staff to move food and laundry.
Mill Hell before the University of Minnesota began developing the area. Now many of the buildings are gone, there are new roads and even bike paths.
Taken on a short trip where the whole floor of the roundhouse and engine shop was covered in fresh snow–thanks to the holes in the roof and open windows.
A better view of the belt system that drives all the machinery in the plant.
Outside the Chateau, where the fuel oil tank blocks the chapel.
In the middle of one of the outlying cottages, perhaps the Masonic Cottage–it was too damaged to tell, really–are these pair of skinny doors that led from patient rooms to a common area with rotting shag carpet.
The four buildings seen here comprise almost all of the notable remaining structures.
This ornamental stair is cast iron and used to connect all floors of the Administration building. Now it connects the first and second floor, then the third and fourth floors, with a strange cinder block and drywall barrier separating the new and old sections of the building. Note the insulation on the floor to seal heat into the lower floors that were used as offices until the hospital closed. On the corners of the staircase are lions, on the corners of the suspended section of stair are down-hanging pineapples. Set in the stairs themselves are shield motifs with slate tops.
A screened water wheel, presumably for rotating the dredge once it lowered its “foot” to pivot in place.
The roof has been replaced since this was taken. Hopefully, that will stem the water damage.
I am not sure what caused the discoloration, but two of the walls near the door to the machine shop are stained yellow-red. I assume this had to do with the walls in relation to blowing piles of iron ore, and that the walls have been partly infused with iron oxide. Any other ideas?
Peering through the glass in the Hoist Operator’s cab, stained with graffiti. The cable and reels can be seen through the glass… these are now gone.
When you watch TV from the jars, it seems so much more real, they tell me.
The south wall of the power plant. Its sheet metal skin couldn’t fit around the structure, it seems… note the very strange protruding superstructure.
When I looked out of the old mill, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was holding it all up.
One of my favorite shots from that year, conveyor line parts stacked and hung with Postal Service bins from decades ago.
Looking out of the American diesel crane at the gantry crane that ran the length of the dock.
A shuttered house at the end of the block doesn’t even have boards on it anymore.
A long exposure in the crane cab at sunset throws a bit of color into the bleak yellow glows between the windows and car shaker.
Inside the main entrance to the depot. Through the ‘To Station’ door, you can see some of the news stands. Look at the floor!
The backdrop has become the pallet for water damage and graffiti.
Tarpaper telling time-
Wood wittling weather-
Rust rot ruins.
There were a few large houses on the Old Crow property where employees would live. The glen had little housing.
The screen and mineral stained window cross-processed the sky.
“See anything?” “No, just more of it.” “How much to go?” “Oh god–we’ve only seen about 10%.” “Guess we should keep moving then…”
This roof hasn’t budged under the weight of snow, instead it just filters-through the light onto the floor.
From Main Street, looking straight up at the A Mill, only the silence makes one think that nobody’s still inside, grinding grain into Pillsbury’s Best.
Looking up to the second floor of the Nitrating House, where cotton would be soaked in nitric acid. These brought cotton into the building.
A cottage for masons infected with TB to live together.
Looking through Workhouse A from the top of a silo.
The organ and bits of glass that have lost their way. Try not to see the upside-down wooden cross dangling from the stained-glass-crown on the church’s front side. Of course, it’s to keep the loose panes from falling out onto the road in wind, but at the same time…
Looking through the hole where a glass pane once was at the Columbus Mine ruins, just south of Animas Forks. It was quiet when I took the picture, but for the gurgle of the nearby Animas River.
Steam pipes snake up the walls like vines, but with asbestos.
The old hotel doesn’t like to show its age. Indeed, if it had a few paint job and soft remodel it would be fit to open–that is, if there was a need for it in this tiny rural New York town.
“It must have been beautiful once.” “Yeah, especially in the winter.”
A small machine shop level.
This room’s trim was unlike the others. Perhaps it was for a live in supervisor.
The interior of one of the curved corridors that connect two wards. Note the original floor’s hand-laid tile pattern. Portra 160.
This is a great example of a combination rock house; the silos below used to fill trains with ore dropped from mine cars pulled to the top of the structure.
In this ghost town where there were brick, wooden, and dirt-brick buildings, the latter fared the best by far.
A sign facing the city on an exterior wall–a sort of motivational poster.
A circular common room in one of the original parts of the hospital. When the asylum was especially crowded, this would be filled with patient beds, too. It’s very strange that this floor was not tiled like the other common rooms. It makes me wonder if especially dangerous patients were kept in this ward; those who could not be trusted to not extract and sharpen the ceramic tiles. Portra 160.
Looking into a common from the grounds. The block glass makes the interior seem dreamlike and distorted. Note the poor condition of the bricks around the window.
A window for light and air pokes above the big arch in the hallway. Most of the interior ceilings were broad brick archways.
The balcony used to be beautiful, you say. I say, it still is.
Inside the MLK High School chemistry laboratory.
Redlining is the practice of shutting certain races out of neighborhoods, and it is still a big problem today. Such behaviors were a big factor in creating the need for these projects.
A skyway 100 feet above this office crumbled one day. This is what happened when those two met. High-impact love.
In this old repair shop, vines fall from the rotting roof to meet mossy concrete. Even though it had been dry for days, water dripped in from the roof to make permanent puddles between workstations. It was full of color and sound and industry and nature.
Because Oshkosh is close to Green Bay, the Packers are very popular there. Everywhere in the plant there were traces of ‘Cheese Head’ culture.
Ultimately, it was the bad roof that doomed these buildings.
A control panel that was mothballed, anticipating a time when the plant may be reactivated.
The engine room.
Looking down at the Port Arthur Ore Dock from Manitoba Pool Elevator #3. The conveyor belts are gone and King Elevator is in the far distance.
This section of the production floor was constantly dripping. Someone had laid down giant plastic sheeting to attempt to protect the lower floors, but it hasn’t worked.
Algae grows where water flows/From the sawtooth roof/To the mines below/The sun climbs high/But is in no one’s eyes/A wall alone crumbles/It was no suprise
Energy conserving window plastic does no good when the doors are all open and the heat’s off.
A bunk room, minus the bunks.
Germany’s steel mill city.
I had to search the shelves a while to find this old logbook. The open page lists changes in stock numbers for Cutler Hammer Coils, and one row says that a new coil was installed on the black larry. The larry is the machine that loads coke ovens.
The front of the Art Deco hospital, complete with Art Deco gears and Crosses of Loraine!
Standing atop the dust collector, the factory breaks down into diverging patterns, processes.
This is a room where the actual explosive elements were mixed. In the event of an accident, this glass wall would give way before the concrete and thus direct the flames and shockwave away from the rest of the building. In other words, the glass is not just to get a lot of wonderful natural light into the building.
The trees were so overgrown, it was difficult to see the hotel at all from the road.
Judging by the bed, this room was used by employees in its later years.
It’s almost hard to tell whether the colors come from oil in the water or the colorful glass lit up by the Michigan sunset.
The sidewalks are littered with rocks.
A tower above Minneapolis that few people see.
This is where the transformers were housed. Note the steel tracks in the floor for moving equipment around the building.
This is what the complex looks like today to the bare eye. Dull, monochrome, quiet.
Looking up at the most conspicuous graffiti in the city on ADM #4.
Copper poured from this furnace and was cast by the autocaster on the right into billets.
The corner of Clyde on Michigan Street looked like it had been sealed a long time.
In the power house corner is this gratuitously gigantic doorway. It used to be even bigger, too, as indicated by the brick arch another foot over the top windows.
The Osborn Block (front) and the Twohy (rear) at sunset. In the distance, you can almost make out Globe Elevators. One of my favorite photos of 2013.
These long curved corridors connected the wards. Locked doors on both of their ends were a security and comfort feature. Sounds and people would be sealed in their respective wards, as the hallways would act like beautiful airlocks; they were so long that it was unlikely that doors would be open on both sides at the same time. Portra 160.
Fire doors separate the buildings.
At sunset the light skips from puddle to stagnant puddle across the whole foundry room, playing with the classic sawtooth roof with half-hearted shadows.
This is one of the more private rooms in the old section of the hospital. It likely only accommodated one patient.
Catwalk crating, welded over the yard crane operator cab’s windows.
This little curled yellow thing is one of the last hints that this adobe building was lived in.
Windows provided the 250-some workers with fresh air and light, and helped to keep flour dust from building up in the air, helping to prevent explosions. Today, machines control air flow better without windows, so they were bricked.
Looking toward the Female Infirmary Ward from the long, glass, Conservatory hallway.
The layout and design of the buildings reminded me strongly of a brewery or distillery. To the right you can see some of the retrofits by the first lumber company to buy the buildings, in the 1970s.
The office was redder than the rest of the building.
From the bottom of the skyway I looked back, my eyes tracing the vines from the marsh up the smokestacks to the perfect Midwestern sky.
A 1960s style TV set in a sun room at the back of the poor house. The concrete room survived the roof collapse and was full of rotten children’s books and toys. Perhaps it was where donations were sorted, or perhaps it was a nursery/orphanage area.
A typical room in the barracks, reinforced from mortars and light shelling, possibly.
In some places in the mine shops, you can still make out narrow gauge track in the floors.
A breeze and broken window has animated one of the few curtains still hanging in Nopeming as of 2015.
Watching the comings and goings of doctors, nurses and new patients was a mainstay of asylum routine; one can find it easy to imagine pale faces pressed against the block glass windows, staring out at the world moving past them.
Peering into a remote office at Manitoba Wheat Pool #3. Someone left their to-do list behind.
The beacon was installed in 1938 and removed in the mid-2000s.
Looking from the shaft room into the room where an electric hoist would be.
Imagine with yellow window guards are eyebrows and the open windows are the eyes. This headframe seems a bit curious.
On the Turbine Room floor, one old steam pump still remains, ready to pressurize steam pipes with the hot stuff throughout the car shops and boilers.
Fluorescent lights peel back from the walls like caterpillars, rearing up and away from the glare of the sunflower-fans.
The power lines follow the street, down to the mineshaft. Everything revolved around the mine, it seemed.
Looking past the hoist room (left) toward Shaft No. 1, behind the concrete head frame built in the late 1940s. This shaft could haul equipment from ground level (below) to shop level, where the picture was taken.
A self portrait, from the early 2000s.
An interesting crane in the back of the machine shop. It seems very light duty, so I am not certain what it was used for.
One of the only extant assembly line tracks in the body painting department. No photographer leaves Fisher 21 without capturing some version of this spot; hope you like mine.
A white star marks the landing between the Keeper’s Quarters (Second Floor) and the radiobeacon and furnace rooms (First Floor).
HDR matrix panorama. Looking from the grain elevators, now doomed, toward the city between the flour mill’s water tower and tile elevator’s neon sign, the old and new economies seem almost united. Yet the financial centers rise in reality to shadow the now-abandoned industry and manufacturing. The way of things, I’m told.
The office building was fancy compared to the utilitarian factory behind it. My favorite part was the logo crown.
Taken in the last few minutes of the day. You can tell by the way that the wall is deteriorating that the windows using to have an arched top!
The conveyorway that carried the sintering material to the mixing floor at the top of the plant.
The State School stage, taken as it was getting scrapped.
These dump cars moved copper ore to the top of the furnaces… it’s about two stories above ground level.
The clock, which was sold after Amtrak dumped the building, was returned to the Waiting Room in 2005.
A rusting disconnect gangway. The smokestack is for a boiler, if I recall.
The stonework was done by a local handyman of sorts, who was also a guard at a nearby insane asylum. He did a great job, it seems to me.
In an old ward, two men would have shared this room.
This building was responsible for storing and drying the barrels. Compare right.
The walls are separating on the adobe house…
As if they were planning to move the furniture out of the hospital, it all sits in the main hallway in the ground floor.
An ajar car elevator car afar, technically.
One of the pair of motors that powered this mine shaft. In the 1950s, this shaft was designated a rescue shaft, and was only maintained for emergencies. One reason that Cheratte built Shaft 3 nearby was because these motors and infrastructure did not have the capacity that the giant mine below called for.
This building looked like some sort of office.
A damaged roof channeled rain onto the adobe walls, cutting them in half. In the distance, a preserved house and the ruins of the Colmor School.
These were some of the most attractive shops of all the mines in the area. It’s no wonder Hanna Mining wanted to use them as their center of operations in the Iron River district.
In most places, it may seem off for there to be a tunnel door on the top floor of a building, but Ford was that kind of place. This door from the steam plant led into a skyway and tunnel that connected to the main assembly floor.