Several years ago, I did a post about the Cooley Brothers garage in Chinook, Alberta, which has been sitting abandoned for about fifty years now. Not much has changed since my original post of 2018 other than the building continues to fall further into disrepair. It has gotten so bad that one commenter on my Facebook post about the garage called for the Special Areas Board to “bring in the backhoes” to get rid of what he called a dangerous eyesore.

I beg to differ. I feel there is much beauty in the decaying remnants of what was once considered the finest dealership between Calgary and Saskatoon. The building itself is representative of the entire community of Chinook, which was once flourishing with businesses and people and now is a mostly-empty shell of its former self.

I didn’t have my original photo from 2018 with me to compare with, so I asked A.I. to take my image from 2026 and align it as best as possible with the original image to make it easier to compare the state of things now as opposed to eight years ago.

You can certainly see the front of the building is starting to bow outwards and the false front on the right side has sagged more over time. The painted “KeePout Please”is also much more faded.

One advantage I had on this trip that wasn’t present in 2018 was having my drone with me. In the video below I fly the drone over the open part of the roof and allow us to look down in on what is left inside one small portion of the garage area.

This is one of those places that you need to visit soon if you want to see it in person as I can’t imagine it will last much longer. Either nature or the local government will eventually decide its fate. As of right now I don’t know which I would bet on to claim it first.