Look Through the Creepy Ruins of Michigan’s Otter Lake Sanitarium
WARNING: Under no circumstances should you enter this property. By doing so you risk bodily harm and/or prosecution for trespassing on private property.
Otter Lake, Michigan is a small village that lies northeast of Flint. It's a small area that had a population of only 389 back in 2010. It's also the home to the former Otter Lake Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, or at least what's left of it.
I'm part of a Michigan Facebook group that shares pictures of old and abandoned places throughout Michigan, and that's where I first saw the photos of this crumbling site. Acres and acres filled with multiple buildings, all of which have seen better days. It was listed at a former sanitarium, which piqued my curiosity. And in doing research about Otter Lake, I found out a whole lot more.
Otter Lake Sanitarium
According to The County Press, Otter Lake Sanitarium was most recently "the Turning Point Recovery Center, which offered short-term residential substance abuse treatment." And even before that, it was the American Legion's first regional children's billet, meaning it was home to children whose fathers had been lost in action or during WWI.
The billet went through many changes, from the addition of new buildings to a growth in the number of residents. It started with 26 children and at one point housed anywhere from 500 to 600 children.
After the site was the Turning Point Recovery Center, it closed in 2012 and has sat empty for the last decade. The grounds are maintained and watched over by a groundskeeper, but many, if not all, of the buildings, are suffering from serious deterioration.
Creepy Ruins of the Otter Lake Sanitarium
Looking through the photos, you can certainly imagine what this place was like in its glory days. But now, it just sits, crumbling and creepy. Look through the photos in the gallery below.