The story
St. Ignatius Hospital was raised in 1893-94 above Colfax, Washington, by the Sisters of Charity of Providence, its brick wards serving the Palouse's farm and rail country for seven decades — births, surgeries and deaths in the ordinary course of a working hospital — before closure in 1964; the building carried on as assisted-living apartments until 2000 and then stood abandoned, weather and vandals stripping it toward ruin. A preservation effort now runs sanctioned history and paranormal tours whose fees fund stabilisation, and the hospital has become the region's most investigated building, featured on national programmes: visitors and investigators describe voices and coughs in the wards, a nun's figure in the corridors, footsteps on the empty upper floors, touches, and shadow shapes in the basement — telling layered on the real patients and sisters whose lives the record honours first. The structure is fragile and entry outside official tours is unsafe and prohibited, which the record states plainly. Tour schedules from the preservation group's official pages.