PINE COUNTY: POKEGAMA SANATORIUM:

Doctor Taylor purchased the land in November of 1905 and founded the Taylor Foundation or Pokegama Sanatorium, as it was later called, for the care of T.B. patients. The first years his patients were housed in tents. By 1910 he had built fifteen sleeping cottages and an administration building.

There was no road out to the sanatorium from Pine City at this time. All of the building material was brought by barge or steamer via the Snake River. Patients had to come either to Grasston by rail and then by horse and buggy from Grasston, or by rail to Pine City... and then out to the sanatorium, up the Snake River by steamer.

By 1917, they had a dairy farm, gardens, apple orchard, and kept poultry and by this time were largely self supporting. Major staples such as flour, sugar, salt etc. were purchased from warehouses in the Twin Cities, shipped by rail to Pine City, then out to the sanatorium by steamer. The first road and the first mail came from Grasston. The road out from Pine City was not completed until 1919.

Patients came from all over the world. A cousin of General Chiang Kai Shek, Colonel Kee Yen Chaing, came to Pokegama in 1940.

After Doctor Taylor's death in 1932, the hospital deteriorated and it was finally closed in 1943. In November of 1944 the property was purchased by the Redemptorist Fathers.

Source: Lawrence Elmer Cummings and daughter Mrs. Clarence Siebert, 925 West Second Avenue in Pine City. Information compiled by Mrs. Steve Vach, Pine City, MN. Transcribed in 1985 from a fading photocopy of the original in the MHS Audio-Visual Library.

Return to top

Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Pokegama Sanatorium (Pine County, Minn.). Maps and Plans. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 986-35

Processing Information:

Catalog ID number: 990017099740104294

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Architecture -- Designs and plans.

Tuberculosis -- Hospitals -- Minnesota.

Document Types:

Maps -- Minnesota -- Pine County.

Return to top