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Former R&S Strauss Auto Service Center

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  I was driving towards what used to be the Consumers Park Brewery when something caught my eye—the wooden gate doors of the old auto parts store were wide open. Someone had broken in. The building had been vacant for years, even as new construction surged all around it. Right next door, a fresh, modern structure had risen, but this place remained untouched—a relic of the past hollowed out and forgotten. I pulled over without hesitation. These moments don’t come often. A while back, another shuttered dealership had been left open for months, its entrance exposed. Graffiti artists had made their mark on the metal gates, turning the abandoned space into an urban canvas. I had thought about exploring it, but before I could, the gates were suddenly chained shut overnight. The opportunity was gone. Not this time. This time, I wasn’t letting the moment slip away. I stepped inside, finally getting a look at what had been hidden behind those rolled-down gates and green plywood barriers. An...

Fiskdale Upper Mill

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I still remember the long walk from where we parked the car. As we climbed the steep, winding road, the Fiskdale Mill gradually came into view, its silhouette a reminder of a bygone era. Just before reaching the main structure, we veered into the trees on the right side of the road, carefully navigating toward the entrance. Earlier, from the car, we had noticed no signs of recent activity around the mill, but we moved forward cautiously nonetheless. The moment we stepped inside through a wide-open door, it was as if we had entered another world. The sight was almost surreal—piles of wooden furniture stretched out across the vast mill floor. Tables, chairs, stools, and other pieces filled the space, creating a maze of craftsmanship frozen in time. As we moved deeper inside, the building’s character began to reveal itself. The back section of the mill was a stark contrast to the main floor. Here, the walls were made of weathered brick, their open-faced texture telling stories of decades ...

The Former Fusion Paperboard Plant (Part 1)

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  148" Trim Inverformer Paper Machine for Multi-Ply Recycled Boxboard I’ll never forget the day my friend J and I wandered onto that sprawling 400-acre property, following the path of a disused rail line. It felt like stepping into a forgotten world where time had simply stopped. At first, we passed by the front building without giving it much thought. J mentioned there wasn’t much to see inside, so we moved on. Little did I know, years later, I’d discover that the building was a treasure trove of abandoned saw machinery and other relics, left behind as if frozen in time. Mill Raw Water Intake Building But that day, our curiosity led us further into the property. We stumbled upon an older structure tucked along the fence line of Papermill Pond. It didn’t look like much at first glance—just another weathered building in a sea of overgrown grass and rusting metal. We decided to take a closer look. Inside, we found black plastic piping snaking through the space, and then, to our amaz...