The place is big, very big. While the building is nearly 200,000 square feet, the site, meanwhile, is over than 430,000 square feet in an agricultural area of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. For those interested, the site is for sale and the current...
The advantage of a 4 hours ride to visit an abandoned sawmill is that we increase our chances of finding an intact place without the slightest trace of vandalism. Or at least, very little.
All along the road, the fear of finding a barricaded building has began to gangrene our mind but the surprise was total at our arrival. The visit was possible and all the industrial equipment of this old factory were there.
It was a real ode to the industrial era of the 80s and 90s: an aluminum and concrete building like the thousand we see miles after miles near the highways. As the doors beat the measure with the wind, the swallows, which have invaded the place, enter and leave the main building at a rate that recalls the frantic pace of a anthill under attack.
For the rest, the factory is calm with the sound of our footsteps resonates on these trembling metal floors. A partial demolition seems to have stopped a while ago.
The history of the sawmill is difficult to relate. If there are articles reporting a short reopening in 2006, its final closure is difficult to establish. In spite of archeological digging here and there in order to learn a little more about these installations, very little information surfaced during my research. At most, I know that they were more than 130 employees at the peak of production in this distant mono-industrial municipality.
Inside, the most recent dates seen on the calendars date back to 2008.
For the rest, it is rather ironic to see nature regain its rights on this place by growing trees where once, these same trees were cut and transformed ...
The place is big, very big. While the building is nearly 200,000 square feet, the site, meanwhile, is over than 430,000 square feet in an agricultural area of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. For those interested, the site is for sale and the current...
Built in the early twentieth century, the former Canada Malting plant has a dozen gigantic silos of 37 meters high. The oldest was built in 1905. Hundreds of employees worked there after the Second World War, until the closure of the factory at...
Built in 1954, the Dickson incinerator was, at the time, the most modern one in North America. It was built to replace these old incinerators where horses were used for harvesting waste.
In the 1920s, the city of Montreal was struggling...
The history of the Babcock & Wilcox in the Galindo valley began during the First World War when the difficulties of the Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España will result in the sale of the plant to the Babcock & Wilcox...