Nestled within the deserted remains of the former Glasgow Air Force Base, near Saint Marie, Montana, is a once-functional military hospital and detox facility (Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital Chemical Dependency Centre) that now lies abandoned - eerily preserved in time. This multipurpose medical facility operated during the Cold War era, serving both active-duty personnel and local patients before shutting down in the early 1990s.
Saint Marie was deliberately built in the 1950s to support the strategic base - housing thousands of military families and staff. When the Air Force base closed in 1976, the entire community went into rapid decline. Very few buildings continue in use - such as the runway, maintained by Boeing and most of the homes, schools, and hospital structures were simply left behind.
Today, the hospital building sits atop a gentle rise overlooking the ghost town below. Inside, you can find decaying patient beds, tattered medical curtains, and old operating tables - haunting remnants of a time when the facility was fully operational.
Though once a center for healthcare and sobriety treatment, the building and the community around it stands as a symbol of fleeting purpose and shifting priorities. It reminds us how infrastructure built for a geopolitical moment can be rendered obsolete almost overnight.
Today, fewer than 500 residents still call Saint Marie home—and much of the original housing remains empty. A tangled web of ownership disputes, soggy condo scandals, and sovereign-citizen legal battles has left the town in limbo. Many preservationists and locals hope that the property can one day be stabilized or redeveloped in a way that honors its history without erasing it.
The abandoned hospital stands as a poignant emblem of what Saint Marie once was—and the complex legacy of military ambitions, small-town hopes, and national shifts in policy. Whether visited or simply viewed from afar, it’s a place where the past quietly lingers amid the rubble—and where stories of resilience, impermanence, and memory remain palpable.
We visited the hospital a few times years ago. It was a time capsule with everything left behind. It was in a state of decay that gave that eerie feeling. On one of our last visits the kitchen area was boarded off, locked and secure. We are not sure whether it was being used for storage or something else but it was clear they didn't want anyone visiting.
Here are a collection of images from our visits to the St. Marie Hospital/Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital Chemical Dependency Centre:
