Tranquille Sanatorium in Kamloops

I like old buildings. I like old ghost towns too and there really aren't too many left these days and what few remain are fast disappearing. I came across the Tranquille Tuberculosis Sanatorium, or 'Padova City' as it once was called, in an internet search on local history. It's located on the northwest shore of Kamloops and is mentioned in few books I own but at the time I read them it was not yet considered a 'ghost town'. It's now called Tranquille On The Lake.

I drove out to Kamloops to see it and while these are not the type of images I would like to have taken (a bit impersonal) I am still happy that I went...it was cool seeing all these old structures still standing relatively unmolested by vandals and I learned a lot on the tour.

All these old buildings were once part of a hospital, treatment center, residences for staff and patients, church, fire hall, cafeteria, farm, garden, orchard, apiary...the list goes on and on. Back in 1907 or thereabouts when TB was rampant no one wanted to be near the ill people and so the King Edward V11 Sanatorium at Tranquille was located well, well away from downtown Kamloops. Kamloops people weren't happy about it initially but it became a nearly self-contained and self-reliant fixture of the area until 1957- when a cure for TB was found.

A lot of important local people were involved in it's history and it's been through a lot...sometime after 1957 it became a mental hospital, "Padova City", and finally it closed in 1984. Between 2004 and 2009 ownership of the property changed hands and it was used as a location for a few films and is now ripe for residential development.