Sunday, June 7, 2009

Dammasch Dump

Dammasch State Hospital was a psychiatric facility constructed by the state of Oregon in the 1960's, closed down, reportedly haunted, and abandoned in the 1980's, then demolished in the early 2000's to make room for another form of insanity -- high density housing. This modern "urban village" is surrounded by "greenspace" and wetlands.


As a child, we used to watch as truckloads of partially incinerated and other garbage trundled from the hospital, over a back road to the edge of the property, through what is now greenspace, to deposit their loads into what we call "The Dammasch Dump" - down a ravine into the creek below.

Over the years, this area has grown over, but the occasional odd item is washed out of the hillside and down into the creek below.

I walked down to the Dammasch Dump yesterday. Sometime I will go back, maybe with a shovel, to search for more interesting trash (treasure?) to share.

4 comments:

  1. Your treasure-like tidbits are a tad on the eerie side. (More! More! haha)

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  2. Oooo--sounds like searching for treasure. When my family and I lived in Grammie's basement those two hears, one of the fun things we did was dig for old bottles down in the canyon in what we called "the digs."

    I remember finding some interesting things over there by that Dammasch Hosp., dump. And also over where the old house that burned down, was--where the stump with the doorway still survives.

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  3. Oh, and I see that "X" DOES mark the spot!!!

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  4. How interesting! We had a similar old place here that was finally torn down a few years ago. It was eery to look at.

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