After closing it’s doors in 1981, The grounds of Eloise (Wayne County General Hospital ca. 1945) has been virtually cleared, leaving only four of the original buildings intact. Most was razed in the mid-to-late 80’s, except for the Wayne County General Hospital which finally met the wrecking ball in 1999.
Wayne County has sold almost all of Eloise’s 902-acre grounds to the Ford Motor Company and their developers. On the former grounds is now a strip mall and condominiums. Some of the property also went towards building the Inkster Valley Golf Course.
All that remains on the land today is The Kay Beard Building, once known as “D” Building, which was an administration building and also houses 400 psychiatric patients. the old fire hall, the power house, and commissary building which is currently being used as a homeless shelter.
The fire hall and the power plant are still standing.
The Eloise smokestack was demolished in 2006 after pieces of brick began to fall from the uppermost part of the stack. The bakery was completely destroyed due to arson in April 2016, with some charred remains still standing.
In 1979, the Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital, located near the northwest end of the former Eloise property, just southeast of the intersection of Merriman and Palmer Roads, was opened. The facility is currently operated by the Michigan Department of Community Health. In 1996, Oakwood Health System opened an outpatient facility, the Adams Child & Adolescent Health Center, on the corner of Merriman and Palmer near Reuther Hospital.
Presently the site and cemetery are maintained by Morgan Development. Morgan Development purchased the entire remaining property for $1 in 2018 and plan to turn “D” Building into affordable senior living, while clearing the property of the blighted power plant, remains of the bakery, and fire hall.
Detroit Paranormal Expeditions runs historical tours of the D building.
There are little remaining remnants of Eloise on the SOUTH GROUNDS (farming grounds) that Eloise used. Most of it is an overgrown field, and there are still crops growing there to this day. The Michigan Signal Seekers (they fly remote control planes) use some of the land, and the cemetery is located behind their gate. The cemetery is the final resting place of more than 7,000 poor residents or persons who had no family to claim them upon their deaths. There is also a viaduct running under the train tracks that was used by employees to commute to and from the main grounds under the tracks, plus an artificial lake.
[Some text recited in part from the Eloise Wikipedia page.]
