A cornerstone of Olean’s past is up for sale.
The old Mountain Clinic Hospital complex, a four-story red-brick giant on East State Street, is seeking its next chapter after more than a century of service, silence, and stories.
Listed at $339,900, this 107-year-old property was once the beating heart of Olean’s medical community.
Built in 1918, it served as a hospital into the early 1970s, treating thousands of patients and welcoming generations of Olean residents into the world.
Today, it stands as both a turn-key investment and a living piece of the city’s history — complete with whispers of its past that some say still linger in the halls.
An Investment with a Story
The property at 103 South Barry Street, directly connected to the former Mountain Clinic at 202 East State Street, offers an intriguing blend of modern use and historic potential.
According to the current listing offered by Howard Hanna, it’s a turn-key investment on Olean’s well-traveled East State Street, offering excellent visibility, access, and reliable cash flow.
The four-story freestanding building includes recently renovated professional office space with well-maintained mechanicals and a long-term tenant: a reputable law firm that has occupied two floors for more than twelve years.
The firm’s lease runs through 2030, generating $4,300 per month in rent. There is adjacent parcel of eight additional spots available separately.
A Medical Marvel
The Mountain Clinic opened its doors in March 1918, the creation of doctors William H. and Stephen V. Mountain.
Built at a cost of $100,000, it offered 35 beds, ten private rooms, and a host of modern conveniences, including electric call systems, private lavatories, and “every modern detail” of scientific medical practice.
Within its first year, the hospital served over 700 patients; by its second, more than 1,000. Demand grew so quickly that an expansion in 1919 added an obstetrics wing, a men’s ward, and a third-floor lecture hall for weekly medical meetings.
For decades, it was a place for care in Olean, a hospital remembered fondly by countless families.
One lifelong resident recalled on social media: “I was born there in 1951. I remember the old pharmacy and getting my iron tonic in a dark glass bottle with handwritten directions. I can still smell it when it was poured onto a spoon.”
From Mansion to Medicine and Beyond
The building began life as the home of George Fobes, an executive with the Olean Electric Light Company. Built around 1909–1910 in a Queen Anne style, it was later converted into the hospital’s office and residential annex.
When the hospital finally closed in the early 1970s, the buildings fell mostly silent. In the years that followed, the Barry Street building found new life as office space, most recently housing Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY) while the adjoining hospital structure remained largely untouched.
A plan roughly a decade ago to transform the former hospital into upscale apartments called Travis Tower briefly flickered, then faded, leaving the building’s vintage medical fixtures and long corridors preserved in time.
Ghosts, Legends, and Living Memories
If you talk to Olean locals, the Mountain Clinic isn’t just remembered. It’s felt. The building has a reputation for things that go bump in the night.
“People have seen a shadow figure in the hallways,” one commenter shared, “a small woman in a lab coat. Maybe Dr. Ruth Mountain herself.”
Dr. Ruth was part of the Mountain family of physicians who ran the hospital, and sightings of her spectral presence have been reported not only in the hospital but also at her nearby home at 304 East State Street.
Former residents remembered eerie experiences in that house:
“Our dog would start to go upstairs and stop suddenly, barking like someone was standing at the top of the steps. Christmas decorations would come off the wall overnight and be found neatly sitting on a chair the next morning.”
Other memories are less haunting, more heartwarming.
“Best chocolate cookies ever made in their kitchen and sold in the cafeteria in the basement,” another former patient wrote. “You could get to it from outside stairs in the back that faced Lincoln Park.”
And from a child who once roamed the halls while their mother worked there:
“I played on the upper floors, riding in the wheelchairs stored there.”
A Building Waiting for Its Next Chapter
The Mountain Clinic has stood for over a century … first as a symbol of progress, then as a silent monument to memory.
Now, with a strong tenant in place, healthy cash flow, and room for creative redevelopment, it stands ready to serve Olean once again in a new form.
For some, it’s a solid investment. For others, it’s a chance to breathe new life into a historic cornerstone.
And for many longtime residents, it will always be more than bricks and mortar and a place that still hums faintly with the stories, memories, and perhaps a few lingering spirits of the past.
References and more about Olean’s Mountain Clinic Hospital:
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