Blackburn Sanitarium - Klamath Falls, OR
N 42° 13.967 W 121° 46.420
10T E 601191 N 4676350
This former hospital/manor is now an apartment complex and located on Esplanade Ave. in Klamath Falls, OR.
Waymark Code: WMK46V
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 02/10/2014
Views: 2
From the National Register of Historic Places nomination form to describe this historic building:
The Blackburn Sanitarium was built during 1911 and 1912 by Alex J. Lyle, and it was the first building in Klamath County constructed specifically as a medical facility. It is located at the intersection of Eldorado and Esplanade Streets, at the edge of the Hot Springs residential neighborhood. It is a Colonial Revival-Georgian style building, having a hipped roof without a full-width porch. The building is two stories with a full basement. The foundation is concrete, the facade brick with concrete window sills, and the roof is wood shingle. The interior of the building is brick walls with lath and plaster finishing. It was one of the first buildings in Klamath Falls to be geothermally heated. An addition to the building was constructed in 1918, also in the Colonial Revival-Georgian style, and a porte cochere was added next to the emergency entrance. The Blackburn Sanitarium is in its original location and is in excellent condition. It is currently used as an apartment house, and the only interior alteration have been apartment dividers which are not permanent, and the change out of the original clawfoot tubs in the late 1930s. The only exterior changes have been to the brick stairs being replaced with concrete on the north face main hospital entrance (the top brick tread remains), and the porte cochere top railing.
Blackburn Sanitarium ran successfully in the days of keen competition stimulated by local industry from 1912 until its proprietor (Alex Lyle) declined in health and closed it in 1928. In 1929, after Lyle's death, the sanitarium, then known as Klamath General Hospital, was sold to Dr. Hunt, and public hospital services were consolidated at Valley Hospital (another NRHP building located at 405 Pine St.). The old sanitarium commenced its present apartment house use shortly thereafter.
Blackburn Sanitarium is significant because it is the oldest standing structure planned for hospital purposes in Klamath County. Previously the area had very little medical care of any kind. The only "hospital" available was on the second floor of a house on the corner of Pine and 4th Streets. The addition of the hospital to the community allowed the expansion of industries, such as timber, which required the presence of medical assistance. The Sanitarium was also the first "modern" hospital facility in the area, and the first to have an operating room and morgue.
I visited someone who lived in this building years ago and remember how tall the ceilings were. Someone could easily built a loft in their apartment. I also remember it being pretty sound proof. With bricks walls two-feet thick inside, I can see why.