WARNING: Under no circumstances should you enter this property. By doing so you risk bodily harm and/or prosecution for trespassing on private property. 

Muskegon's Phillips Elementary School opened for business in 1946. It was a typical elementary school for the time, handling classes from Kindergarten through sixth grade. It started small, with only six rooms; a gym and more classrooms were added in later years.

Fifty-eight years later in 2004, it closed for good for lack of students.

According to Ruin Road, it was sold to a man who wanted to turn it into a “life training campus” but due to lack of funds and unpaid back taxes, it didn't happen and the school went up for auction. More legal hassles came up between the former owner and the city but it still sits empty. The former owner sued the city, the bank, and four individuals for a total of over eleven billion dollars. That's right – BILLion. Ten billion for not making his dream of a life-training campus come true, and another billion for pain and suffering.....don't know how that all ended or if it's still going on.

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Exploring the old elementary school, the videographers (who indeed got permission) came across a couple of rooms that had been taken over by a “colony” of homeless people. 'Colony' might be too big a word, but there is evidence of a good number of people living in the school. Beds, cots, food, clothes, trash, pop, TV set, and even a record player. There's also toilet paper that's been strewn in various rooms for who-knows-what reason.

The gallery below shows the elementary school outside, inside, and where the 'colony' is/was living.

Deserted Elementary School, Muskegon

MORE ABANDONED MICHIGAN:

Abandoned Northern 1790 House

Abandoned Grandmother's House

Abandoned Ranch/Mansion Near Howell

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