Built in 1863 by Mother Joseph and the Sisters of Providence, St. Ignatius Hospital in Colfax, Washington was the primary medical facility for miles, supporting the rural communities of the Palouse for years. Due to rising building costs the nuns sold the building in 1968 and it became a home for the mentally disabled. Unfortunately, the doors were officially shuttered in 2003 and the building was left abandoned for almost 20 years. Watch to find out how paranormal activity is helping to save this building and how one couples vision is changing the buildings fate.

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Partial Transcript:

So, St. Ignatius Hospital was built in 1893 by the Sisters of Providence. Mother Joseph built the building. She also built Sacred Heart Medical Center. In about 1968, the nuns decided to sell it because they were going to have to put in sprinkler systems. And then it became a home for developmentally disabled and the mentally insane. In 2003, they abandoned the building.

I am Valoree Gregory. I am the director of the Whitman County Historical Society, and I’m also the head tour guide for the ghost hunts. Eight years ago, we decided to use, like paranormal tourism as a way to get people to come to Colfax. We used it as a vehicle to get people here and it worked. So yeah, we had to use what we could and ghosts were -Sure, it's always been known as being haunted. Like all the neighbors will say, Oh, I see someone standing in the window and I know you're not there because my car's not here. So, I didn't have to make up ghosts or anything like that. It's always been known as a haunted facility.

[Austin] We first saw the building in 2014 and we were just struck by both the beauty of it and how rundown it was. We were surprised that no one was taking care of it. And then it took us a full seven years to actually buy the building from the previous owners.

[Laura] I think how Austin and I most felt about it was, we're like, Well, worst case scenario, we try to fix it and it all just caves in, we go, Well, that was going to happen anyway. At least we tried, then not attempt it.

[Austin] Yeah, it's really that, that whole thing where regret runs one way, right? Once you lose something like this, there's no getting it back. We really feel that urgency when we're when we're looking at old buildings. That if we don't save them, we'll lose something irreplaceable.

[Valoree] I love that they're going to repurpose it and still save the history. Like I think the outside will still say St. Ignatius and I'll still say 1893 on it, and they'll still be able to tell the story of what this building was. And I think that's probably the most important thing that we do on our ghost tours is that it's just not about finding the ghost or seeing something or hearing something that's fun. But we like to tell the story of the people that lived here. Now, whether those spirits are here or not, I don't know. But it's fun to tell about Mother Joseph. It's fun to tell about Sister Gabriella and we love to get the story out about the people who built the place and made the place what it was.

[Austin] So there are lots of times in history where people are kind of stymied by how to use a building. Like there's no immediate adaptive reuse that suggests itself. And that could be the case in a building like this. Like Colfax is a smaller town. So there's not a lot of call for one use that uses the whole building. Fortunately, we can we can put a whole bunch of pieces in and really make it something special.

[Laura] We're working with a design group to figure out to be like, okay, could we do a coffee shop on the main level? And then how many rooms can we fit on that above floors? And then you have to figure out, well, if you're going to do X number of floors, like when you want to do it to code, you're like, Oh, this thing or that thing. And I think we really want to do something when it’s finished, you still want to feel like you're going back in time a little bit. You don't want it to be like, well, and everything is sleek and shiny.

[Austin] Yeah, it'll feel, it'll feel transportive not just because it's dilapidated, but because you feel that history in in the building.

[Laura] We always joke that it's going to be a life long project.

[Austin] Yeah. You know, when you take on something like this that it's going to take time, but it's such an exciting vision to imagine being able to come here and stay in the building in a part that's finished and then go from that on your ghost tour through doors that then take you into the unfinished part of that building is something so wonderful about that.

[Laura] I live for that vision.

[Austin] Can't wait to realize that.

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