Todd Helps Move Sanatorium Project Along

 

SANITORIUM RESTORATIONS. Jeremy Montgomery, energy advisor at Parke County REMC; Cyndi Todd, Executive Director of Partnership Parke County; and Gregg Larson, owner of the former Indiana State Sanitorium are pictured in front of the former TB hospital on the Sanatorium grounds. (photo submitted)

 

By Austin Arceo

Wabash Valley Power Alliance

Parke County, native Cyndi Todd fondly remembers playing in her great-aunt and uncle’s home on the grounds of the former Indiana State Sanatorium. The hospital complex that first opened in 1907 to treat tuberculosis patients was built as a self-contained campus, with houses and apartments for the doctors, nurses and employees – including Todd’s great-uncle, who was a groundskeeper.

Todd did a double take in 2015 when she noticed the hospital property on a list of locations owing back taxes. The amount owed to the rural west-central Indiana county was growing larger than the weeds overrunning the site that last operated as a nursing home before shutting its doors in 2012.

“Property taxes need to be paid in order for us to be able to fund other types of projects,” Todd said. “That’s why it caught my eye.”

The then-newly minted economic developer committed to resuscitating the complex. Her trek would take longer than a half-decade and receive aid from unlikely places – including the local electric cooperative and its wholesale power provider.

For the full article, see this week’s edition of the Parke County Sentinel.