I've seen a photo of this facility before, but now I can't find any notes about it. The photo showed the fire escape "tubes" from second story windows that I remember seeing as a kid when we traveled down State Street. (I wonder when State Street became State Blvd.)
Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted three photos with the comment:
1912
Indiana School for Feeble Minded Children
Ft. Wayne, Ind.
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The Indiana School for Feeble-Minded Youth in Fort Wayne opened its doors in 1890 on East State Street, in an area that was, at the time, in the country. The school's campus included the Administration Building, cottages, a school, an industrial arts building, a hospital, and a gymnasium. The vocational arts were divided by gender, with men learning carpentry, agriculture, painting, upholstering and the making of mattresses, shoes and bricks, and the women learning the domestic arts of cleaning, cooking, canning, dressmaking, loom weaving and laundry. Residents came from all over the state. In 1931, the 1130 resident capacity facility housed 172, and had a waiting list of 200. That same year, the legislature changed the school's name to Fort Wayne State School.
In 1960, many residents moved to the new site at Stellhorn and St. Joe Roads, but some residents continued to live at the old school for about 20 years. After a number of years in which the State Street campus was inhabited by vagrants and rats, the Administration Building was demolished in 1982 to make way for North Side Park, which became Bob Arnold Northside Park. The Park Department saved a stone archway to leave as memorial to the former residents.
The "new" location is now also gone. Ivy Tech has used that land for expansion.
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| AsylumProjects, this page has three more photos |
FortWayneReader has a more detailed history. The architects also designed the City Building.
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| JA Motter posted Many of you will recognize this august Richardsonian-Romanesque edifice as the Fort Wayne State School. It was located on E. State Street, a few blocks east of Northside High School. While attending South Side High School in the late 1960s, my friends and I would sometimes drive past the institution and say: “I wonder what really goes on in there?” Few knew then, few even know today. I had an opportunity to go inside in the spring of 1971, during my freshman year at the “Indiana/Purdue Extension.” How so? Because the IU/PU campus had no gymnasium, all intramural basketball games would be played in other local venues (mostly elementary schools) around Fort Wayne. One of those venues was the gymnasium at the Fort Wayne State School. My team played one game there. Upon arrival, we were surprised to learn that State School administrators allowed the residents of the institution to attend the games. As a result, the large gymnasium was filled with several hundred fans of all ages. In some ways it was just another basketball game, but in others the experience was exceedingly odd. For one thing, college intramural basketball games almost never have spectators, but here we were playing before a full house. For another, the people in the stands were unusually animated. No doubt they were excited to have an opportunity to watch the game, but their behavior was quite loud and borderline chaotic. Perhaps the oddest thing was when one 50+ year old man (perhaps a “lifer”?) proclaimed to the players on the court his fantasy for a young girl he had in tow. She was 16 years old at most. How bizarre it all was. But there is more to this story. Just two years ago, I was teaching a course here in Atlanta on C.S. Lewis’ success in debunking various philosophical fallacies, such as subjectivism, moral relativism, rationalism, scientism, historicism, and progressivism. As I was conducting research on Progressivism, I discovered several surprising facts. One such finding was that the world’s first Fascist totalitarian dictatorship was not that of Mussolini, nor Hitler, but in fact was the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (look up the American Protective League). Wilson and his Progressive cohorts--including education reformer John Dewey, editor Herbert Croly, journalist Lincoln Steffens, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, and eugenicists Harry Laughlin and Madison Grant--had a profound impact upon the world, and not to the good. How do I mean? Most people believe the hideous practice of eugenics was first introduced to the world by the German Nazis. But that is not true. Amazingly, the practice of eugenics had its origin in the United States . . . in the State of Indiana . . . in the town of Peru, Indiana to be precise. From Indiana this cancer spread across the nation, and years later, to Germany. It may be true that 1920s Wilsonian Progressives in America learned about fascism (i.e., managing the railroads) from the Italians, but it was these same Wilsonian Progressives who instructed the Germans on eugenics. For example, in Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler wrote: “We Germans must emulate what the Americans are doing” . . . and so they did. When Adolph Hitler was in prison, he read Madison Grant’s book: The Passing of the Great Race, a clarion call to safeguard the “right race”. Hitler wrote Grant a fan letter saying: “This book is my Bible”. In 1933 Hitler came to power, and with him the concept of eugenics as inspired by the “Model Eugenical Sterilization Law” written by American Harry Laughlin, who was corresponding with German scientists. Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree in 1936 by the University of Heidelberg for his work on “racial cleansing”. It was our own ruling elites who hatched the idea of a utopia comprised of a master Aryan race created through selective breeding and then passed that idea along to the Nazis. Sadly, with “the Final Solution” the Nazis took the idea of sterilizing inferiors, first implemented in America, to horrific new levels. Madison Grant’s book led to the 1924 U.S. Immigration Restriction Act, which cut immigration by 97% for 40 years. As for the mentally deficient already here, state-sponsored centers were opened around the country for the purpose of sterilizing the mentally and morally incapacitated. One of the first institutions serving people with intellectual/developmental disabilities in the nation (and for that matter, anywhere in the world) was commissioned by the Indiana State Legislature in 1887, and constructed on land just outside its second largest city. When it opened its doors in 1890, it was called the Indiana School for Feeble-Minded Youth, but in 1931 the state legislature changed the school’s name to the Fort Wayne State School. It always seemed the "State School" was primarily a place for boys who behaved badly, but in a 1916 annual report to the Governor of Indiana, 56% of the residents were girls. This school would become a leader in forcing their students to become sterilized. From 1927 through 1974--when sterilization laws were at long last overturned by Gov. Otis Bowen-- 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized in America due to “Progressive” policy. Records confirm that 1,500 of those people (2.5% of the national total) were sterilized at the Fort Wayne State School. This not-so-august institution might be a blight on the City of Fort Wayne, but the blame for this can be placed squarely at feet of the Governors of the State of Indiana to whom this institution reported. The State Legislature chose an area that at that time was outside the Fort Wayne city limits, and thus outside the purview of the Mayor and City Council. It was not until 1979 that the State of Indiana deeded the property to the City of Fort Wayne. It boggles my mind to think: They were still performing forced sterilizations when I played basketball in their gymnasium in 1971. |
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| Victor Locke commented on JA's post |
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