Sanitarium road pictures
One day I took a bike ride to Granite Falls, and down the Sanitarium road (aka County Road 40) where I heard there was an abandoned sanitarium. Someone I met had gone in there and found beds with leather restraint straps still on them. Needless to say, I had to investigate.

Sanitarium road is on the river bottom, the valley where the Minnesota River flows.

I kept not seeing anything remotely like a sanitarium. But, eventually, I came across a small hydroelectric dam.

I was thinking the sanitarium must be off on one of the dirt roads that branch off from the tar road. This doesn't look like it either...

The Minnesota River was kind of floody that day. As of now, there is still flooding in Montevideo, and upstream even further, the Red River is still flooding Fargo, so I hear. I saw this road going off into the flood and decided to see where it went.

A plaque informed me I was entering the Gneiss Outcrops Scientific and Natural Area, home to some of the oldest rock formations in the US. Look at this rock formation! It is so Gneiss!

And this one's Gneiss too!

Isn't that Gneiss?

Eventually a pickup truck came rolling down the road. I waved it down, and asked the driver where the sanitarium was. He said I had missed it by 10 or 15 years! He used to go exploring/partying in there when he was in high school, but since then the whole place has been torn down. He did tell me where it was exactly though. I had just been by there! I went back the way I came.

This is where the sanitarium driveway once was:

Oh wait! There IS still a building here!

What WAS this place? a pumphouse?

This may have been one of those beds! No leather straps are evident however.

A few curbs remain. Possibly they are all that remain of walkways on the grounds.

More buildings! They look like they were once chicken coops or something similar. I know there used to be a farm on the grounds of Greystone Park mental hospital in New Jersey to occupy the patients. Maybe they were doing the same here.

Nice perch! I wonder who comes here to hang out so much they felt the need to set up a seat. Whoever it is, they weren't there that day...

Eventually it became time to leave. I wanted to make it home before dark you know.


more pictures at bniblet.com