Radioactive Photography

Over the summer of '09, my family and I ventured into a supposed haunted attraction, the Hot Lake Hotel and Sanitarium in La Grande, Oregon. I myself had researched the painful history of the building before we got the opportunity to tour the place. Being a fan of haunting stories, i was very exited to get inside the halls of such a disturbing building.

Wether you believe in ghosts or not, this building is by far, one of the most creepy buildings of all. From lights flickering in the hallways, to tales of horrfic expieriments and surgeries on the third floor, many "haunted" buildings cannot compete. 

I tried my best to capture the feelings this building gave me. I hope you will be able to tell just how intriguing yet terrifying my experience was here.

For more information, visit the official website for the hotel, but I warn you, you won't find any haunting stories there. The owners are very much against such stories, and classify them all as rumors. If you are interested in reading the scary stories i have, you can try googling the subject. I found numerous websites containing photos and stories. It just takes a little digging. :) 
Here's a view from the highway that runs right by the hotel. As i'm sure you can tell, this place is creepy. as far as haunting stories about the outside go, i've read stories where people talk about how while driving by the hotel at night, they get a strong urge, or voice in their head to drive off the road.

Here's another shot of the building, from the parking lot out front. It's being renovated at the moment, which is coming along slowly.

Here are some shots of the sign. It really contributes to the creepyness.

This is the statue out in front. The current owner of the hotel is a bronze sculptor, and has his own foundry in the building.

This is an old fallen building behind the hotel. I think it was part of the resort at one time.
Another old building outside of the hotel. At one time, the hotel was a part of a town-like resort.
This is one of the hot springs, or hot lakes that surround the hotel. They were believed to have theraputic healing powers, and many of the third floor hospital patients benifited from them, as well as guests staying in the hotel. As far as haunting stories go, it is believed that a nurse once fell into the springs by accident. the water is well over 200 degrees, so the woman would have been scalded to death. A few people have reported seeing a ghostly woman figure around the springs. But because of the steam, it is usually written off as imagination.
These geese were plentiful.

This broken lampost seemed to be a perfect representation of the place.
I loved the brick and old weathered windows. The vines in the first photo, and the chairs in the window in the second really caught my eye.

And now for the interior-the most creepy part, of course. This is the hallway on the third floor. Formally known as the hospital floor. From what i've read and heard, the hospital was used as a sanitarium. I'm not really sure what they were treating, wether it was mental illness, or a deadly disease. I should also mention that over the course of about 2 hours we spent there, the power went out numerous times. Even creepier, the lights flickered almost constantly. This could have been due to the electral cords running through the building everywhere. (The owners haven't been so smart with their renovations. They told us they've done many things without permits.) But i choose to believe the power outages, surges, and flickers were due to an otherworldly presence.

This was one of many creepy items crouding the tight hallways.

My dad and I were told about a birdcage style elevator, and that there was a gap in the wall where you could peek inside. We searched for a bit, and finally found the gap on the first floor. As i'm sure you can tell, this was extremly creepy. It was bassically a random hole in the wall, with a bunch of elevator gears, a huge engine, and what looked like a very old and broken elevator. Being the daredevil/adrenaline seeker i am, i of course, reached my arm inside the dark cage as far as i could.

As i passed by this room, i had to stop and peek inside. I don't know if it was the lighting, or the unassembled gurney to the side, but it deffinatley had a creepy feel to it.

This is an old gurney they set up in attempt to show what hospital life was like. I don't know about you, but that bed doesn't look like much fun to sleep in.

Here comes a creepy story. Let me tell you about this drain. It is no ordinary drain. It sits in the middle of the "surgery room", directly under where the surgical table would be. That's right, it's a blood drain. The owner briefly mentioned what it was and continued to tell the happier parts about the building. But I wasn't affected by her attempt to skip past the subject. I knew what she said, and i knew what "blood drain" meant. Especially after all the stories i had read about the horrific operations performed in the room.

Apparently, doctors performed both experimental surgeries on their patients, and historectomies on the women to keep them from reproducing since the patients had some sort of terrible illness. Like i mentioned before, i have not been able to find information on the illness they were treating. So i'm not sure wether it was mental illness, or a deadly viral disease. Both make for a creepy history.

i've recently been told that people have reported blood seeping up from the drain randomly. It's likely all imagination, but the creepy history keeps me from ruling out the possibility completly.

This is the surgical table from the room. For some reason, the owners decided to move it away from the drain. You can see how destroyed the pad is. I'm not sure if it's from weathering, decay, or a fire that made it look like this. The image on the wall behind it is the mural painted there to depict an old photo of the room taken in the hospital's prime.

Before i move onto another story, i want to mention how scary the surgery room really was. Being that i've had a lot of surgeries myself, i felt drawn to it. Not in a happy way, though. I felt the pain in that room, and it made me very uncomfortable. But for some reason, I was incredibly inclined to spend a lot of my time in there. And if i left it, i felt like i needed to go back. I think i must have returned to the room 4 or 5 times. To this day, i still feel emotional when i think of being in that room.

Here is my favorite photo from the day. If you haven't read the stories above, i'm sure you'd look at this and say "favorite photo? this photo is horrible. it's all blurry!". But that blur is no random mistake, i assure you. I'm not sure why i took this photo. I walked out of the surgery room, looked at the area, and just decided to take a photo. I did not see this blur with my eyes, and I did not see it when i looked through my view finder to take my picture. I didn't see the blur until i was revewing my photos on the way home. You could argue that the blur is from the light coming through the window, but the fact that i didn't see it with my eyes, or through the camera makes me want to rule that out. You could also argue that the blur is from something on my lense. But after i saw the picture, i immediatley checked my lense. Nothing. Not even a speck. Due to all the circumstances, I am fully convinced that i captured a ghost.

I would love to return to the hotel someday. The owners are renovating it, and plan to re-open it as a working hotel. I hope I will get the chance to stay overnight, and perhaps, sneak back up to that surgery room.