abandon

FORGOTTEN: Cherry Hospital. Goldsboro, North Carolina

FORGOTTEN: CHERRY HOSPITAL

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Overgrown with vegetation and crumbling brick, the Cherry Hospital located in Goldsboro, North Carolina was completed in 1880. At the time, was named “Asylum for Colored Insane"; The name was finally changed to Cherry Hospital (in honor of Governor R. Gregg Cherry) in 1959 after several name changes including: The Eastern North Carolina Insane Asylum, Eastern Hospital, and State Hospital at Goldsboro.

Cherry Hospital served as the only mental health institution for the entire black population of North Carolina for its first eighty five years of operation. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act forced the hospital to desegregate and take in all patients. The hospital had several buildings on its campus including specialized tuberculosis and criminally insane in 1924.

The hospital contained Cherry Farm, 2,300 acre farm that was farmed by the patients of Cherry Hospital as a form of horticultural therapy. It is rumored that the hospital is haunted as the farm houses two cemeteries where it has been said that patients who died at the hospital were routinely buried without a proper funeral. This idea was supported was a 2002 archaeological study where it was found that hundreds of patients were buried under the name of their I.D number while thousands were buried in unmarked graves.

The hospital started its downfall in 2007 when it was revealed that a man by the name of Junius Wilson had been kept there for seven decades because he was presumed mentally insane for using only hand gestures and grunts for communicating. Junius was admitted to Cherry Hospital in 1925 on a false rape attempt charge. Although the rape charge was dropped in the 70s, it wasn’t until 1991 when a social worker realised Junius was merely deaf and communicated with a unique form of sign language taught in the Southern states. Upon his release, Junius had no surviving family and was castrated shortly after his arrival to Cherry Hospital (a common practice for colored people who were accused of rape at the time). He was given a small cottage on the hospital grounds where he reportedly lived in peace till his death in 2001.

In 2008, Cherry Hospitals federal funding was cut following a suspicious death of a resident at the hospital; the hospital staff was found at fault for the death as news reports state that the body was not discovered for several days after death all while security camera showed the staff were watching TV a few feet away as the patient died.

The hospital closed in the fall of 2016 and all of the existing patients were transferred to the new Cherry Hospital, a half a mile away on Steven Mills Rd. Today the hospital sits on private property with much of the interior fixtures and some lights still flickering on in the dark hallways.

FORGOTTEN: Bombay Beach (Salton Sea)

FORGOTTEN: BOMBAY BEACH (SALTON SEA)

Just an hour south of Joshua Tree National Park and three hours east of Los Angeles sits what is left of Bombay Beach, CA.

It is the last of the Salton Sea resorts that sprung up in the mid 1900s as a result of accidental flooding by the Colorado River. In an attempt to irritate the Imperial Valley, engineers from the California Development Company built slits connecting the Colorado River to the valley in 1905. The slits became overwhelmed and over the course of two years it took to make the necessary repairs, the dry lake bed flooded thus creating the Salton Sea.

In 1942 the U.S Navy commissioned the Salton Sea Naval Auxiliary Station southeast of Salton City. The base was used as a testing grounds for seaplanes as well as experimental testing of solid fuel plane-launched rockets, jet-assist take-off testing, aeroballistic testing of inert atomic weapon test units at land, training bombing at marine targets, testing of the effects of long-term storage on atomic weapons, testing of the Project Mercury space capsule parachute landing systems, parachute training and testing. The base was abandoned in 1978.

Throughout the mid 1900s, the Salton Sea created other resort towns like Bombay Beach; Desert Shores, Salton City, North Shore, and Desert Beach each offering fishing, water skiing, boat tours, camping, and other summer vacation activities.

Over time the salinity levels of the lake reached toxic levels and starting killing fish and wildlife living in the lake. As a result, the tourism and economic growth to Bombay Beach and the resort towns like it began dry up.

What seems like happened over night took several years. Homes, cars, and land were left behind in search of a more prosperous future. Dead fish and the odor that comes with it still blankets the shoreline for miles. Equipment that was used for maintaining the beach as well as piers that used see hundreds of kids each summer jump off of now sits on the crusty white shoreline covered in barnacles. An eerie silence hangs over the town broken only by an occasional bird or semi truck.

There are still residents of Bombay Beach, about 250 of them, and even a small bar called The Inn where is claims to be the lowest elevation bar in the western hemisphere. Artists from around the world have made works with materials found from the surrounding decaying structures. Other art installations like Salvation Mountain (30 minutes northeast of Bombay Beach) have sprung up in the area as a result of the mystery and lore surrounding the decaying Imperial Valley.

There is little hope for the future of the Salton Sea. Efforts to restore the ecosystem and economy have all been rejected due to high cost and/or impracticality. The last attempt as of writing this occurred in 2018 when eleven proposals were sent to the state for review and all of them were rejected (estimates for restoration have been quoted in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars). Small restoration efforts have been made to preserve the history of the Salton Sea, like the restoration of the North Shore Community Center in 2010 as well as clean up efforts in the once popular camping spots. Small references in pop culture have kept the mystery of the Sea alive. A map in Grand Theft Auto V called Alamo Shores was based on the Desert Shores and Bombay Beach; this was met with mixed reviews as residents of the area believed it had a negative portrayal of them and their communities.

Bombay Beach and its unique history of economic boom and bust will live on through the people who visited it long ago, the current residents and by those drawn to the history and lore as to what is left of the once shining, premiere resort town of the Salton Sea.

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Brady LaVigne

FORGOTTEN: Montana Safeguard Complex

The Montana Safeguard Complex: A Taxpayer Fleecer

(PAR) site. Decommissioned in 1974. 

In the middle of a field sixty miles north of Great Falls, MT of lies what is left of the Montana U.S Army Perimeter Acquisition Radar Site (PAR); one of many relics of the Cold War in this region of the state.

PAR sites were part of the United States’ Safeguard program in 1960s; a program developed out of the need to defend the U.S Air Force’s ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles) silos in the region from the Soviets.

The idea of such a program first came in the form of the Sentinel Project; the project was cancelled in 1968 and efforts were redirected to constructed the new Safeguard Program away from civilian populations. The massive project was scaled back to just two PAR sites: Stanley Mickelsen Complex (located near Grand Fork, ND) and the Montana Complex.

Construction of the Montana site began in 1968 with a total estimated cost of $64 million (or $386 million in 2018) and utilize 9,000 people on hand in construction in 1972 and 4,000 later in development. 8.5 million pounds of steel with concrete walls three to ten feet thick would protect the people and equipment inside.A series of rails and elevators were constructed inside to move equipment and material for construction and maintenance for the radar.

The project faced several setbacks that caused construction to stop twice; once due to snow, the other due to a labor walkout in 1970.

The Safeguard Program was scaled back even more with the additional agreements of the Anti-Ballistic missile Treaty in 1974, only allowing one PAR site. The Montana complex was only 10% complete by this time and further efforts were redirected to the North Dakota complex since it was further along. Thus abandoning the Montana site in the same year.

After the abandonment, locals tried to come up with plan to utilize the space however because the size was largely underground and in the middle of nowhere, the site was salvaged for anything of value, everything underground was filled in, and parking lots, roads, and trailer sites were torn up.

Today the property sits on private land thirty miles east of Ledger, MT along Ledger Rd.

What is left of the 600+ acre site.

Graffiti artists and vandals have called this place home since its abandonment and with no plans to demolish the structure (due to cost) chances are the structure will stand, proudly in the middle of nowhere, for generations to come.

FULL GALLERY: (Photographs taken on August 5th, 2018)

Welcome to FORGOTTEN

Hello and welcome to FORGOTTEN, the blog where I showcase anything and everything abandon.

Abandon structures and places have always fascinated me; the idea that something is built and used for many years, sometimes having a lifelong impact on someone, only to be abandon and forgotten. A shell of what was. 

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I hope you enjoy this series as much as I do producing it.

Disclaimer: Urban exploration does have its risks so watch your step and explore with a buddy if you can. Additionally, I do not take or leave any souvenirs or artifacts from any site, only photographs.