{"id":243,"slug":"san-haven-state-hospital-dunseith-north-dakota","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["San Haven is the sanitarium the mountains were supposed to cure — the North Dakota Tuberculosis Sanitarium the state put on the Turtle Mountains' south slope in 1912 for the altitude, the dry air, the conditions the medicine of the day prescribed for consumption. Six hundred acres of it, the state's answer to the disease, the patients sent to Dunseith to breathe their way back.","The tuberculosis went and the purpose shifted — San Haven became a state hospital, then a center for the developmentally disabled, then closed in 1987 and stood abandoned on the tribe's land for thirty-eight years, the buildings failing, the asbestos friable, the ghost hunters coming. The Turtle Mountain Band got the EPA money to take it down; the demolition finished in 2025, the hundred-year-old sanitarium finally gone from the slope it was built on.","The file keeps San Haven: the mountain air cure, the TB years, the developmental center, and the demolition that ended the abandoned hospital's second life.","San Haven is the archive's Turtle Mountain file — the sanitarium, the decades of abandonment, and the buildings the tribe finally removed."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["San Haven is the archive's Turtle Mountain file — the 1912 sanitarium, the closure, and the 2025 demolition.","A hospital for the air keeps its slope — the file's suggestion being that San Haven's hold is the setting: the Turtle Mountains that were chosen for the cure, and the buildings that outlasted both the disease and their purpose."]}],"name":"San Haven State Hospital","aliases":["North Dakota Tuberculosis Sanitarium"],"type":"HOSPITAL","type_label":"Hospital","cats":["INSTITUTIONAL_HISTORY","ABANDONED_PLACE"],"groups":["dark-history","ghost-towns","institutions"],"desc":"Hospital associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"A hospital in Dunseith, North Dakota, opened in 1912, San Haven State Hospital is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Hospital associated with documented cultural history. The archive files it under institutional history and abandoned places. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. It is closed now; the account outlives the building.","address":null,"city":"Dunseith","county":"Rolette","state":"North Dakota","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":48.813033,"lon":-100.062233,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"CLOSED","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":1912,"year_closed":1987,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Historical source documents state vacancy and 1992 tribal acquisition. Current building condition and access unverified; no paranormal claim inferred from institutionalization.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":55,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Opened in November 1912; closed in December 1987 following institutional-care litigation and reform. An institution with this much documented suffering needs no embellishment; the record speaks. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'San Haven State Hospital - Archives' documents the entry. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"San Haven State Hospital - Archives","url":"https://www.history.nd.gov/archives/stateagencies/sanhaven.html","publisher":"State Historical Society of North Dakota","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"San Haven State Hospital - Archives","url":"https://www.history.nd.gov/archives/stateagencies/sanhaven.html","publisher":"State Historical Society of North Dakota","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"San Haven State Hospital","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Haven_State_Hospital","desc":"Sanatorium in North Dakota, United States","extract":"San Haven was the name of a state hospital and tuberculosis sanatorium 2.5 miles northeast of Dunseith, Rolette County, in the U.S. state of North Dakota.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/San_Haven%2C_North_Dakota_-_6176627459.jpg/330px-San_Haven%2C_North_Dakota_-_6176627459.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":108,"lat":48.83472222,"lon":-100.03888889},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}