El Rancho Adolphus

Welcome to El Rancho Adolphus, located somewhere near Tompkinsville, about 30 minutes from Scranton. This property was once owned by famed "nutritionist" and lecturer Adolphus Hohensee back in the 1940s-60s, until his death in 1967. What happened to the property after that is unknown, but it was most likely abandoned shortly after his death.

Mr. Hohensee was a very interesting character. Originally from Poland, he emigrated to the USA in the early part of the century. He was schooled until 1918 when he left Washington Missionary College and lived a relatively normal life for much of the 20s. Before his career in nutrition, he worked in a real estate scam and was later arrested for mail fraud. After serving time in prison, he began a sightseeing business and was arrested for various misdemeanors. In the 1940s, Mr. Hohensee decided to work in the line of nutrition and moved from Washington D.C. to this small farm which he named El Rancho Adolphus.

Mr. Hohensee began a long career of lecturing on nutrition and selling health food products. Though he had no formal schooling in health or nutrition, he did receive an honorary degree from an institution that closed shortly thereafter, and also passed an exam that granted him a chiropractic license in Nevada. El Rancho Adolphus was Mr. Hohensee's homebase of sorts, and many visitors came to see the healthful place that he had created. Many pamplets and books were also published by El Rancho Adolphus. Despite the fact that very little of Mr. Hohensee's nutritional guidelines had any basis in fact, nor did he follow the guidelines himself, he made quite a good living off his business. The FDA repeated attempted to stop Mr. Hohensee, but he was mostly able to escape charges or get off with a small fine he could easily pay. At one point he did serve a reasonable amount of prison time, but he continued to promote himself even after he was released.

The barn is in fairly good condition. It was used to house cows, both dairy and beef cattle.

We didn't spend much time inside the barn. It did have a lot of stuff in it, but quite frankly, we didn't want to mess with the birds that live in there.

Next to the barn is some sort building with a metal frame. The side facing the barn is mostly intact, but the side facing the road is bare, and grass and trees grow inside. Not to mention a lot of garbage has been dumped inside.

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