Places That Were: April 2016

Deep in the Black Canyon of rural Utah lies the abandoned Osiris Creamery and Granary, a towering remnant of the ghost town of Osiris.

Osiris Creamery and Granary Abandoned in Utah Ghost Town

I woke at sunup on day 2 of my Epic Rust Belt Road Trip. Having spent the previous day visiting an abandoned hospital, airport, and pet cemetery, I could hardly wait to get back on the road for another day of exploration.

I wended my way through the rolling hills of central Utah, awestruck by the scenery. I'd fallen in love with Utah's beautiful rock formations on my previous road trip, and now I was enjoying a whole new side of the state that I hadn't seen before.

About 8 miles south of Antimony, along a winding country road, I came to the magnificent towering structure of Osiris Creamery and Granary.

[Note: Osiris Creamery is on private property and must not be accessed without permission from the owner]

The granary portion of the building was relatively clean and free of debris. Its thick wooden beams had held up well in the century since it had been built. The stairs and flooring were mostly in solid shape, so I felt safe exploring every level.

I did have to watch my step though, because there were a few sizable holes in the floor.

No equipment remained inside, but there were quite a few chutes and other inner workings that gave an idea of how the place might have functioned back in its day.

The top story is a narrow room with windows all around.

The view of the surrounding countryside was spectacular.

I also had a good view of the rusty equipment that remained in the ruins of the adjoining creamery.

I peered down through holes in the floor to the vast emptiness of the silos below.

Then I carefully edged out onto the roof.

At the apex was a collapsing wooden tower that I dared not enter.

I descended to the basement and got a look at the silos from ground level.

Behind the property a sprawling field of dense brush is kept at bay by a cyclone fence, leaving a narrow yard that seemed like a perfect spot for a picnic.

Stringy plant life flows through a basement window frame.

I gazed up at the empty windows above.

In the back corner of the property sits a decrepit little shack with an old stove rusting behind it.

The inner walls of the little shack are very weathered and covered in markings left by years of visitors. On the ceiling in the picture below, you can see that someone has carved "Jim S." I promise I'm not the culprit; I adhere to a strict "leave no trace" policy.

Next to the granary building sits the neat little stone ruin of the original creamery.

The ceiling is completely gone. A layer of flaking white paint remains on a few of the stone and mortar walls.

A few sun-bleached wooden beams stand amid the thick weeds that blanket the floor.

The creamery still contains one notable piece of equipment.

A constant stream of water flows from a large metal tank. The sound is incredibly peaceful.

The water passes beneath the stone wall,

and is guided though a man-made channel

to form a stream behind the property.

Osiris was settled in 1910, along the east fork of the Sevier River near what is now Bryce Canyon National Park. The town was originally called Henderson after William James Henderson, a shepherd from Panguitch, who donated the land.

Later, W. E. Holt arrived from the nearby town of Widtsoe. He and his family built a house and a creamery. The grain mill and massive silos were added later. For unknown reasons, Holt renamed the town Osiris, after the Egyptian god of the afterlife.

The ruins of the Holt family home still remain across the street from the creamery.

The brambles were thick and impassible and I hadn't brought a machete, so I was unable to get a closer look.

Harsh weather and and insufficient water made farming prohibitively difficult. After a decade of struggle, the Holt family abandoned the settlement in the 1920s.

The Osiris Creamery and Granary was an awesome way to start the morning, but the day had plenty more incredible places in store for me. Come back next week for pictures and stories from the ghost towns of Antimony and Junction, Utah.

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The abandoned Boulder City Hospital sat atop a hill overlooking Lake Mead. From its magnificent vantage point, the old structure kept vigil for more than 80 years, while the man-made lake rose and then slowly fell and the city around it quadrupled in size.

After visiting the remains of the old Boulder City Airport, I headed into town to check out the old Boulder City Hospital. I'd read that the building was facing the possibility of demolition, and wasn't sure it was still standing, but since I was already in the area, I figured I'd give it a shot.

The boarded-up structure sat perched on a hilltop in a tidy residential neighborhood, looking quite out of place among the well-kept homes. I was relieved and a little surprised to find the building intact.

The sign out front still bore the name of the building's most recent tenant, Wellspring Life Giving Spring Retreat Center, which closed in 2009.

Furniture and assorted trash was piled out front.

The front doors were tightly locked.

Historic Boulder City Hospital in Nevada

A stop work order tacked to the plywood announced that an appeal had been filed, requesting that the building not be demolished due to its historical status.

I peered through one of the few windows that wasn't covered with plywood and saw that the deconstruction process had already been well underway by the time the stop work order went into effect.

I walked around the outside of the building and snapped a few photos.

All of the possible entry points were secured shut. Judging by what I'd seen through the window, it seemed like the building was pretty much gutted and there wasn't much left to look at on the inside anyway.

The Boulder City Hospital building (also known as Six Companies Hospital) has a robust history that extends back to the very beginning of Boulder City.

Boulder City was originally a planned city, created to house the workers during the construction of the Hoover Dam. The city, like the dam, was a joint endeavor of the federal government and Six Companies, a consortium of private construction firms.

Built during the Great Depression, Boulder City was intended to be a manifestation of optimism, clean living, and the "greening" of the American West. Alcohol and gambling were illegal and the town had its own theater, so as to discourage workers from traveling to Las Vegas for entertainment.

Because the nearest hospital was located in Las Vegas, about 33 miles away, the Boulder City Hospital was built to care for sick and injured workers. It opened in November of 1931 and allegedly cost about $20,000 to build.

The hospital originally included a separate 8-bed "Pest House" used for quarantines. It was torn down in 1933 and replaced by an isolation ward.

Employees of Six Companies were charged a fee of $1.50 per month to pay for hospital upkeep. Unfortunately their wives and children were not allowed treatment at Boulder City Hospital, and had to travel the 33 miles to Las Vegas for their medical needs.

Hoover Dam was completed in 1935 and the hospital was closed. In 1938 the National Park Service took control of the hospital building and used it as a museum for artifacts from the area that would soon be covered by Lake Mead.

The Park Service moved out in 1941, leaving the building vacant until the U.S. Public Health Service reopened it in 1943 as a hospital for soldiers injured in World War II. It is said that supplies were so scarce due to the war effort that refurbished equipment had to be shipped in from other hospitals around the country.

Residents of Boulder City took part in the effort by helping to clean and repair the equipment and creating a volunteer ambulance service.

The Bureau of Reclamation took control of the hospital in 1949, but decided to close it in 1954 due to the financial burden. City residents scrambled to raise the $15,000 necessary to keep the hospital open, and managed to do so within a 2-week window.

In 1973, the new Boulder City Hospital opened on Adams Boulevard, and the old building was condemned shortly thereafter.

The Episcopalian Sisters of Charity bought the old hospital in 1976 and transformed it into Wellsprings Retreat House. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

For nearly two decades, Wellsprings served the community as a venue for a variety of events, including church groups, conferences, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. It also provided temporary lodging. Guests were asked to help out with simple simple chores.

When the Sisters of Charity moved to West Virginia in 2000, Wellsprings was sold to the Western diocese of the Orthodox Church, who modified the name slightly to Wellspring Retreat Center.

In 2009, the diocese closed Wellspring and listed it for sale at a price of $1.5 million.

In July 2015 a developer named Randolph Schams bought the property for $550,000. Despite the building's historic status, the city planning commission decided to allow him to demolish it and build a housing development on the site.

The decision was controversial. Schams happens to be the city’s planning commissioner, which many saw as a conflict of interest.

A group of Boulder City residents created the Historic Boulder City Foundation to stop the demolition in hopes of transforming the old hospital into a museum.

The effort proved unsuccessful. In November 2015 the city council voted to allow the demolition to proceed.

Shortly after my visit, the old Boulder City Hospital building moved to that great big abandoned place in the sky.

After a memorable day of exploring Boulder City, I got back on the road and headed into Utah. Come back next week and I'll tell you all about the awesome abandoned creamery I explored.

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Awesome Abandoned Osiris Creamery and Granary in Utah Ghost Town

Hospital of the Dammed