Sublunar Photography

The Welch Spring Hospital was constructed above a natural cave in the early 20th Century on the banks of the Current River in Shannon County, Missouri. The site was chosen for its spring and cave whose clean water and fresh air was found to be effective in reducing symptoms in persons afflicted by "respiratory maladies" which included hay fever, head colds, asthma, emphysema and tuberculosis. It was operated here as a health resort sometime after being purchased by Dr. C. H. Diehl in 1913 until his death in 1940.

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Christian Herman Diehl was born on December 9, 1879 in Montrose, Illinois. His parents were German immigrants who had settled in Illinois and of their nine children, only 5 survived past infancy. Dr Diehl attended school until he was seventeen, eventually working for the Illinois Southern Hospital after which he attended classes at what would later become Southeast Missouri State University. Afterwards, he enrolled at Austin College in Effingham, Illinois where he earned his Bachelor of Science. Following that, he went on to complete a 4-year course at the now defunct Saint Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons from which he graduated on July 15, 1908 and subsequently gained membership into the American Medical Association. Prior to graduation, he took an examination in "Indian Territory" in Oklahoma and upon graduating he gained experience through an internship at Jefferson Hospital in Saint Louis. He successfully completed both the Missouri State Medical Examination and the Illinois State Board examination. Dr. Diehl specialized in Public health and by 1910, he was listed at 323 S 4th Street in Effingham, Illinois, where he "built up a large and lucrative practice and has handled some very discouraging cases with complete success. He has his own laboratory and compounds his own medicines. He keeps thoroughly abreast of the times and is identified with medical organizations." During his time as a student, he was married, on October 6, 1907, to Jennie Deichmann who was also a student of Austin College. He was later elected to positions within the Effingham County Medical Society and was the District Health Officer.

Dr. Diehl suffered from hay fever and at some point he discovered that after going into the Welch Cave that his own symptoms were relieved and "the same results were obtained in the case of head colds and other respiratory maladies". It's not clear what Diehl was doing so far from home, considering that Welch Spring in Missouri is 4 hours from Effingham Illinois (by car) and at the time such a trip was much more difficult and took longer than it does today especially if one was traveling by horse.

The Welch Spring and Cave were named after the owner of the site whose name was, interestingly, Current River Welch. According to Mr Welch's granddaughter, Dr Diehl was spotted across the river when the owner's sons James and Arnold Welch had led a team of horses to the spring for water. Dr Diehl reportedly called out to them "Who owns this land and is it for sale? My name is Dr. Diehl." Subsequently, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported, on December 27, 1913, that "Dr Christian H. Diehl has purchased the farm on which the Shannon County Cave is located".

Aside from the aforementioned fact that this cave and spring is located such a long distance from his home and established practice, it's also not clear whether he had permission to enter the cave prior to offering to buy it. It seems unlikely that he (or anyone) would have made an offer had they not first discovered it-along with the subsequent relief of symptoms it provided. Was he initially trespassing into the cave and happened upon the owners when the reported story of their introduction had occurred? Additional details lost to time include the official start date of the enterprise; The Missouri State Medical Association reported in 1937 that Dr Diehl had been "carrying on some research for the last two years" at this cave. It is also reported that Diehl died in 1940 at age 61. If these dates are accurate then his medical retreat would have only been operational for 5 years, despite his having owned the site for a total of 27 years.

At some point during his ownership, in addition to building this "hospital", Dr Diehl had a road constructed from the top of the hill down to the site along which were cabins for the workers he employed. He also had a lodge store built near the entrance along with a dam constructed across the spring. This road still exists although it is now gated off and marked NPS access only, and nothing remains of any of the other buildings but a few foundations scattered in the woods. The hospital building is itself now all but ruins itself; four walls with no roof form a perimeter around the cave entrance. Contained within the walls, aside from overgrowth, a staircase leads down to a small passage in which were built what appear to be a couple of concrete beds whereupon, one assumes, patients had once rested. Beyond them, a stone doorway serves as the entrance to a small subterranean chamber which is mostly flooded but which retains its natural cave features and presumably the same fresh air which originally brought Dr Diehl and subsequently his patients, relief from their respiratory ailments.

The site was abandoned upon the doctor's death in 1940 and after deteriorating for the last 80 years it is currently barred up and off-limits as part of the National Park Service.

The accessible portion of cave from inside the building is only one small room and is perpetually flooded. I do not recommend anyone try going here because it's not worth potentially damaging the site when the photos I've included below show everything there is to be seen.

Sources: (1) American Medical Directory 7th edition 1921; (2) Journal of the American Medical Association December 27 1913; (3) Illinois Medical Blue Book 1922; (4) Illinois Historical Effingham County Biographical 1910; (5) Missouri State Medical Association volume 34 1937; (6) Salem News Online

Historic Photos of Welch Spring Hospital

End Historic Photos

Depaul Hospital was constructed in 1928 and opened in 1930. It was run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent DePaul until 1977 at which point it became North St. Louis General Hospital. The new hospital only operated out of the first and second floor and only until 1978 when it closed down. It remained vacant until 1984 when Tower Village, Inc. began running a nursing home here. Eventually, Tower Village became Northview Village and it had been a nursing home for the past several decades until it was abruptly shut down permanently on December 15, 2023.

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This (re)visit was a long time coming. I first learned of this site back in the early days. In fact, my profile photo was a candid photo my comrade had taken of me at the entrance to the basement of this facility back in 2008. I was lurking at the doorway carefully listening to the sounds of the basement as we searched for any remnants of a morgue beneath this former hospital/active nursing home. In the last photos in the above linked blog post, there's a door covered in spiderwebs and dust in what is an obviously abandoned room. The next photo is a view through the window of a clean hallway inside an active medical facility. It would seem perfectly normal if we weren't observing it through the decades of dust and spiderwebs which had accumulated inside of a long abandoned wing of the same facility. I imagine anyone on the active side of this door would have felt rather uneasy about the view this window offered them since for them it was a haunting portal of darkness and decay staring back at them from the end of a long and lonely hallway and who knows what weirdos might be lurking on the other side of it at any given time..

Having been aware of this hospital's status as a nursing home for the past couple decades, I assumed that if I ever did get to explore it, it was going to be fairly boring inside because there would likely be no operating rooms or morgue, etc. But even back in 2008 you could tell the upper floors were obviously disused and I always wanted to see what was up there. So the time finally came and after 17 years, we returned to the site and made it happen.

For the most part it was exactly what I expected it to be. The chapel, however, is incredible and features ornate tile and stained glass among other details which I wasn't expecting. But the entire rest of the place is, well, a bombed out shithole/death trap (hence why I'm not concealing the site's real name). Each floor is the same repetitive series of hallways and filthy bedrooms most of which have been gutted and trashed.

Multiple fires have been started directly on the floor throughout the building. I'm not sure if they were put out intentionally or if they simply burned out harmlessly but either way this place is quite fucked and I doubt it's going to get any better under the current circumstances. Not only is the structure itself a truly unfortunate waste of good architecture and medical infrastructure, but there seems to have been a lot of equipment (hospital beds, mostly) which could have been donated to other similar institutions which are instead just being destroyed. Among the waste, we found a room nearly full of boxes of sealed N95 masks.

I've been exploring abandoned locations for a long time now and it still amazes me how selfish, careless and wasteful the 'ruling class' are. This is a massive structure which had previously won awards and various acclaim for its incredible architecture and modern/efficient design, yet the persons who were last responsible for it appear to have simply discarded it, walked away and let it become the city's problem. On top of that, these assholes (allegedly) shut the place down suddenly without warning, didn't pay out wages and caused their sick/elderly residents to be immediately re-housed elsewhere without prior notice and without proper medical records. The former residents and employees as well as the historic DePaul Hospital, not to mention the community and the city itself deserved a better outcome than this.

Historic Photos of Northview Village / DePaul Hospital Saint Louis

End Historic Photos