Piney Ridge was a short-lived private sanatorium on Big Whitefish Lake in Crow Wing County. Dr. J. H. Sandberg moved to northern Minnesota from Red Wing, and he built a summer cottage on the lake in 1900. In 1901, he built 12 one-room log cabins and set up 13 floored tents. This was intended to be a summer fishing resort catering to physicians, but he soon advertised it as a tuberculosis sanatorium for incipient cases. Rates were $10 to $15 a week. When the Minnesota legislature was seeking sites for a state sanatorium, Sandberg wrote to the Board of Health to suggest Big Whitefish Lake as a suitable location. In 1906, the office building was destroyed by fire. By 1911, Piney Ridge was again advertised as a fishing resort.

Dr. Sandberg was interested in botanical studies and the James Ford Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota has many plant specimens collected by him.

Sources: J. A. Myers, Invited and Conquered, p. 409; , American Medical Directory, V. I, 1906; Northwestern Lancet, v. 25, 1906. The drawing that accompanies this article appears on Dr. Sandberg's stationery in the Department of Health collections at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Piney Ridge Sanatorium

Piney Ridge Sanatorium

Source: stationery at Minnesota State Historical Society