Lois’ House

I’ve always been an archaeologist at heart, ever since I was a small child gleaning clues from old dump sites in the backwoods of Northern California. It’s not surprising that when I went to college I chose Anthropology as my course of study. And it’s equally unsurprising that I continue this obsession to this day, …

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The Fragrant Factory

Date of Visit: March 31, 2012 The company was founded at the turn of the 20th century. They manufactured a wide variety of products – from spices to baby powder, from health tonics to gravy mixes, from ink to salves. Like many companies of its era, they had mail order catalogs and door-to-door salesman. Their …

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The Empty Box

Abandonments come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of interest. My favorite locations are filled with personal effects that allow you to glimpse into the lives of the people who lived or worked in that location. My least favorite locations tend to be empty shells. However, there are exceptions to that rule. There are times …

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1863

Date of Visit: January 26, 2013 My friends and I got together in Wisconsin for an excursion to several different locations on Saturday, January 26, 2013.  On the agenda was an abandoned nursing home, and a few old farmhouses.  Most of the day turned out to be kind of a dud… except for one of …

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The Sound of Silos

Date of Visit: January 25, 2013 I’ve lived in Chicago since 2004.  I probably drove past the Damen Silos on Interstate 55 a hundred times, and each time I would think, “You know, I should go check that place out sometime. ”  Well, I finally got around to it on January 25, 2013. The Damen …

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The Ice Castle

Date of Visit: January 25, 2013 When you fall in love with abandoned buildings, your love story very rarely has a happy ending. Sometimes your beloved is abused callously over many years, with taggers and vandals and thieves slowly breaking her down, one element at a time. Sometimes your beloved collapses under the strain of yet another …

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Numbers Without Names

Date: January 20, 2013 You may not know this about me, but I have a long history of mental illness. I suffer from severe depression, which has resulted in a history of suicide attempts, self-mutilation, and other self-destructive behavior. I’m medicated now, so I’m mostly okay, but I still have seasonal depression that plunges me …

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Once-Grand Apartments

Date of Visit: January 12, 2013 Abandoned apartment buildings seem like they would be fascinating explorations: all those rooms full of hints into the lives of the people who once lived there! And I’m sure they are if you hit them at the right time.  Unfortunately, most of the apartment buildings I’ve been in are …

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