The dome buildings and an ancient boxcar

While travelling random back roads we always seem to stumble across something interesting – old farms, machinery, all kinds of left over and abandoned stuff – it’s amazing what we find. An example of a very cool and rather strange discovery, happened upon totally by accident (as is often the case), are the two dome roofed structures seen here. Keeping the two buildings company and adding even more appeal, is an ancient wooden boxcar at the same site.

It’s not clear the exact purpose these two structures serve. Are they a house and garage, or are they two storage buildings? Given their poor condition, we may never know for sure. Certainly one would be big enough to live in and the other has a door big enough and space enough to drive a car into. However, there is a large sliding barn-style door leaning against the bigger building which if it belonged to this structure suggests that it would have been used for utilitarian purposes. So two sheds, a dome-home and shed, a barn and shed, dome farm buildings, or what?

In that respect we’ll hold our opinion on what we think, until we know more. Our readers are invited to chime in on this as well.

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Scroll down for photos and to comment ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

One building is a perfect half sphere, the smaller one, and the other similarly built but with vertical walls topped by a dome – think of it as mushroom shape. The larger building also has what appears to be a rudimentary dug-out style basement which hints at it being used for residential purposes – although that’s still only a hunch, of which we have many.

The “garage” building seems fairly solid, it’s leaning a bit but nothing major. The other, the guessed at “home” as you can see is caving in on one side. A few more snow dumps and who knows, it may collapse completely. Peering inside one can see just how complicated the dome structure is and one would have to be an expert to build this incredibly challenging roof-truss system. Kudos to the carpenter who mastered this discipline. On the fallen side, is what appears to be a large entrance way, or perhaps a porch if it’s actually a home, but its too far collapsed to say for sure which.

No information has been found in respects to when these buildings we constructed, but we’ll keep digging. If I were to guess, the late 1960s or early 1970s would be a reasonable one. It seems at that time, radical architecture like this was becoming more acceptable and more so this author has found many dome roofed style homes and buildings looking similar to these ones that date from that era. Until we know more however, that’s only a guess – lots of guessing and assumptions in this report.

While there may indeed be some advantages when it comes to dome roofed construction. – strength, large open spans – I’d say the complexity of design and the additional costs to make it would be a huge disadvantage. A half sphere is a complex structure to build.

There is some junk in each building, as would be expected. Old car parts, equally old appliances and other bits and pieces. And of course bird poop, lots of that.

Also on the property is a very old all-wood railway boxcar. This veteran is easily a century old, actually more like a hundred and ten or twenty years old given the style of construction. It’s all wooden body and underframe means its from around the turn of the twentieth century. The car’s backbone, large wooden beams (probably oak), have cracked which has caused it to kink in the middle.

The windows I’d guess were added sometime after the car was retired, which would have likely been in the 1920s or thereabouts. Wood cars did not last long in service, perhaps no more than two decades or so at best. I looked high and low and could not find a car number or company logo, not surprising since any paint has long since faded away. Without that, we’ll never been able to track the car’s lineage. It seems likely though that it’s an ex-CPR boxcar given that their tracks are right beside the property here. How it got to its current location here and when can only be guessed at.

Inside the was the usual assortment of junk and of course, bird poop. One end of it shows signs of being burned. Some of the outer sheathing has broken away allowing us a good look at the truss system which normally helps give the car rigidity but seems to have failed here. The car has a broken back!

Just down the tracks is another box car, this one from a more modern era, being used as a storage shed for a nearby company. The door says “GE Railcar Services” who once ran a rail car repair facility in Calgary. In the 1990s, GE (yes he same GE that makes home appliances) used a small portion of the CPR yards downtown to do their work. This car must have been a shed for them as well.

The exact lineage of this boxcar is also not known, since a car number cold not be found on it. We do know however that it was likely built in the 1970s since its appearance matches other cars of that same era.

Seen in nearby playground is a miniature grain elevator, symbolic of the thousands and thousands of such full-sized structures that used to dot the prairies. We caught a glimpse of this mini-vator as we drove away and had to take a picture of it.

We visited this site at the magic hour, the time just before sunset when everything is a golden colour. This added such a wonderful glow to most of the pictures and even inspired me to take some arsty shots. I, as do most photographers, love that time of day which lasts for maybe an hour (hence its name). There is also a magic hour in the morning, and both rely on the weather cooperating of course.

If you like this report, be sure to check out these ones too…
Abandoned and old part 1 – with Sharpeshots.com.
Plane Art and the Geodesic home (another dome style building).
Old barn, big city.

If you’d like to know more about what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: October, 2013.
Location: Rocky View County, AB.

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Dome building

The smaller of the two dome buildings at this site – perhaps a garage?

Dome shaped buildings

The larger structure is starting to cave inwards on one side – was it a house?

Old building doorway

We peer into the building…

Dome roof building

This allows us to see just how complicated the roof structure is.

Collapsed dome building

How many more snow dumps before it collapses completely?

Half sphere building

The sunset adds such a golden glow to the scene.

Round dome building

So far we have been unable to find any data on when these were built and for what purpose.

Old wooden boxcar

This ancient wooden boxcar would be well over a century old.

Dome buildings and boxcar

The smaller building is a perfect half sphere.

Dome topped building

The larger is more mushroom shaped with vertical walls topped by a dome.

Ancient wooden boxcar

I check out the boxcar’s interior, which was full of bird poop and junk.

Golden sunset

A poor attempt at being artsy.

Wooden boxcar

Missing sheathing allows us a look at the car’s truss system which is normally out of view.

Boxcar storage shed

This more modern box car is not far from the dome buildings and is being used as for storage.

Playground grain elevator

Seen this adventure, a little grain elevator in a school playground.

25 responses

  1. Darrell Unrau says:

    Thank you for sharing this. I helped my friend Larry with construction of the domes in the mid seventies. Larry lived in the boxcar while working on the domes. They were never finished due to lack of money for materials. Larry moved into the smaller garage dome after it was made weatherproof. The story of their history on the website is untrue. I haven’t been to Indus since Larry sold the property in the eighties and have often wondered whether they were demolished by the susequent owner(s).

    • Thanks for this. I assume you mean the other person’s comment? I’ll write a note above his bringing attention to yours. Looks like we got a bit of disagreement on our hands.

  2. Brenda Puckett says:

    These are pretty cool!

  3. barry says:

    Very interesting. Good work.

  4. Simon Steffen says:

    Wow, what a find… Kinda too bad it went abandoned. Hippie House!

  5. Richard Cockerill says:

    Shared to Ghost Town Hunters FB page.

  6. Steve says:

    …and thank you guys for the great ideas!

  7. Erin887 says:

    These are some amazing buildings. Sad to see them falling down.

  8. Steve says:

    Thanks guys, I was there yesterday, January 21, 2014 and nothing has changed. Winter is not the best time to go there, as the snow is waist deep, but it was very interesting and worth the effort. Great to know the background info. about the domed buildings. Hmmm, wonder if one of them would fit in my backyard…in Calgary…

  9. Roslum says:

    It looks beautiful!

  10. Bobbie Lloyd says:

    Cool I have past these often but never stopped to look inside.

  11. B Salmi says:

    love this stuff. thx. more please

  12. Kaden Clouston. says:

    Hello, I just read your article on the dome shaped buildings and old boxcars. I’m 16 years old and live just 10 minutes south of Indus and went to Indus school from Kindergarten to grade 9. I think I can shed a little bit of light on these buildings. Living not far from Indus I’ve visited these buildings numerous times in my life. I know who the owners are and I have known the following information a few years now… The dome buildings were constructed some time during the 1950s by a man named Ronard Lepaune. The one you thought might have been a garage, was and is in fact a garage. If you can remember back to your time being there, there is a rectangular pit towards the far left side of the complex. It was used for changing oil and other auto repairs. But the pit was filled in by the recent owners because they feared their kids might fall in it when playing in it. But you can still see where the pit was. I’ve found car parts in there from 60s to 70s Cameros. As well as other random Ford parts and hubcaps. And even got so lucky as to find a Canadian penny from 1917!! The other dome building across from it was in fact the house. Good job on the predictions!! And Ronald lived there with his family. The older box car next to the garage was actually originally converted to small house. You can actually to this day still see an old couch frame in the far corner. The owners have decided not to demolish these complexes because of the absolute phenomenal design that they have. The other box car that is just down that path is owned by Crystal Services Incorporated and is used for storage. There is a few others on his property that the owner bought from CPR because they failed to pass inspection years ago. And on a side note… That small green grain elavator in the schools playground was a memorial of the actual Indus grain elevator that was demolished back in 2004. I think it’s really cool what you guys do and I holed I helped at least a little bit. Also if you guys want to check out some other cool old buildings not far from Indus, there is plenty in between Dalemead and Carsland all along the back gravel roads. Happy hunting!!

    • Awesome, thank you so much for sharing what you know about the dome buildings. I am glad I got most of it right. I was guessing a bit since no information could found online. That penny was a good find. I’ll be exploring the area again soon!

  13. Train Geek says:

    Great pictures!!

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