Boehne Camp

Indiana · United States · Hospital

A tuberculosis hospital, abandoned. The patients here were kept in, by law, so they would not infect anybody else.

Boehne Camp near Evansville, Indiana was a tuberculosis hospital and has stood empty for many years.

What people report are patients, and the accounts always come with the same explanation: that they were held here against their will, to keep them from infecting others.

That part is accurate and it is worth being precise about. Before antibiotics, American states had legal powers to detain people with active tuberculosis, and sanatoria were built away from towns to hold them. Patients spent years in them. Some recovered. A great many did not, and they died a long way from their families in a building nobody visited.

The treatment was rest, fresh air and time, which is why these buildings all have long open verandas facing the sun.

The property is now privately owned, and students from the nearby university are regularly caught trespassing on it. It is posted and unsafe.

FAQ

Where is Boehne Camp located?

Boehne Camp is in Indiana, United States.