The first relates to the Military Institute which closed in the summer of 2006. Included is an in-depth historical view into the school's past dating back to the 1850s when it was better known as the Male and Female Collegiate Institute. It later merged in with a county high school but relocated to its own facilities where it remained until just recently. Declining enrollment and a sharp reduction in funding led to its sudden closure, where papers that need to be signed are still scattered across the President's desk, where beds are in top condition ready for am inspection that will never come, where milk and other foods occupy refigerators that would have served an eager student body.

Not far from the Institute is the now-deceased John Graves Ford Memorial Hospital that was located in central Kentucky. This was one of the first abandonments I stumbled upon when I first came to the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The hospital stood abandoned for many years near the center of Georgetown, and it was a pretty stark derelict. Broken windows were galore, and boards lay on the ground, ripped by vandalizing teenagers looking for a cheap thrill of potentially finding ghosts and goblins. And the infamous homeless rapist that was so scrawled on the walls.

Inside, infant incubators lay about in an orderly fashion, along with pill dispensing equipment, stoves and patient records. It's all gone now, along with the original 1917 front, the 1952 north wing, and the 1972 west wing.

Nothing stands in its place today.

Renderings of a 1972 addition and additional text relating to the hospital's tenure have been added.

Of local interest is the Morehead State University Natatorium in Kentucky. Closed to the public in 1988, the Natatorium is slated for demolition after preservation architects deemed the building to be unusable. It was once billed as the "epitome of swimming pools." History and some historical photographs have been uploaded.

In West Virginia, Barboursville Brick has been demolished and is being preprared for new development.

And finally, overlooking neglected pastures and hay fields, a classic-revival mansion stands outside a city whose goal in the 1990s was quite paramount: historic preservation. Unfortunately, this gem was overlooked and it stands abandoned, with furniture resting against the walls on the inside, appliances still plugged in in the kitchen and curtains that flap in the wind. It was last used in 1963.