The Return - Sani-Tour 4

As many know I explore abandoned buildings. Well this past Sunday I was able to return to one of my favourites, the Muskoka Regional Center in Gravenhurst. Originally built in 1897, and was the first TB Sanatorium in Canada.

However none of the original buildings are left on the site. The massive Gauge Complex built in 1922 and the Barbra Heyden Building (1936). Plus a smattering of annex buildings and houses on site.

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The Guage Complex

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The water tower, I really wanted to climb it, but there was ice on the ladder

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The Barbra Heyden Building, no explorer has entered this one.

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The Gauge Complex from behind. The complex is made up of three wings (A, B, and C), along with the food service buildings.

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The place was shut down in 1994, decay is everywhere.

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A typical room on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

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One of the dining halls at the place

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The MRC Money Shot, everyone has multiple copies of this image.

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Decay and distruction, this is actually one of the cleaner halls on the lower floors, most have the roof's caved in and HVAC ducts on the floor.

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A Staff rest area on the 3rd floor

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An office

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Unlike the lower floor the 4th floor is actually pretty intact.

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The basement, this is actually from my first trip in march of 2006...but I just can duplicate it.

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During the summer and sometimes in the winter the OPP use the place for training. As a result several sections have heat and power.

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One of the three houses on the site, used to house the staff.

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The houses remain furnished, for training purposes

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That's it folks.

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Fascinating. We had a family friend in the 50s that went to a tb sanitorium but I have no idea where it was. This place looks huge. Too bad they can't figure out some other useful function for these old places.
On the side, I'd use some due caution exploring these old places as they are very likely filled with asbestos dust.

As always, very interesting images, Axle. I love that Dymo label on the wall, "return all unused liquids to the dishroom"... :cool:

Axle, (rant on) when I see things like this, my first thought is What a waste! :frown2: Any fiscally responsible government could have turned this into places for homeless people (provided it is safe), or torn it down and built something useful on the site - don't know what that would be for the Muskoka area, but even if they sold off the land to a developer, it is, IMHO, still better than letting everything waste away (rant off). Good documentary images!! :D

WesternGuy