Pauls Valley State School

Pauls Valley State Training School for Boys

Pauls Valley State Training School for White boys was established in 1907 in Southern Oklahoma. Construction on the major facility began a year later creating cottages, dormitories, a farm and classrooms. It focused on White boys ages ten to eighteen and used military discipline combined with education to refine the boys’ behavior. Manual labor was done on the farm and in the fields, boys planted vegetables and took care of chickens. The whistle blew at 11:30, and the boys would march in from the field where they had just spent the morning. Over the years the facility housed on average a few hundred boys at a time, they would attend school for half of the day and work a trade the other half. Eight grades were taught and then boys would be required to take vocational classes, they had thirty trades to select from and learn about. Some of these included cooking, cleaning and pressing, farming, poultry raising, engineering, printing, shoe repairs, and laundering. Skills that they could take out into the real world but also were vital to the inner workings of the facility.

The average length of time that the boys spent in the facility was around eighteen months but was often shortened if they had a record of good behavior. Military drills were practiced for thirty minutes daily by each pupil. In 1931 $45,000 was approved to add two new buildings to the grounds, one of them being a detention and observation home. It would include a classroom, clinic, and dormitory living quarters. The second building would be a new dormitory with twenty rooms that could fit two boys in each room. It would become known as the “honor building” where boys were assigned to stay after completing three months of training.

Boys were sentenced to the State Training School for many reasons ranging from petty theft to things more serious such as murder. In 1938, Daniel Van Horn, 15, and a 12-year-old accomplice were sentenced to five years at the State Training School for Boys after they were convicted of highjacking and theft. They took $1.80 as well as the carrier boys’ bicycle. Another young boy, L.E. Goddard was 12 when he was sentenced to Pauls Valley after he shot and killed his eight-year-old cousin. He critically injured his aunt in the altercation as well and told officials that he did it because “they were telling lies on me.” He was observed at the Eastern State Hospital for Insane and determined to be sane with anger issues.

Pauls Valley State Hospital

In 1945 the facility was converted into the Pauls Valley State Hospital for Epileptics. The facility quickly filled up with over 350 patients. The State Hospital’s condition had been greatly diminished over the decades. Many people in the outside world were oblivious to the conditions in the facility, Representative Robert O. Cunningham visited the State Hospitals during his first term and noted the conditions. Expressing concerns over the lack of attendants, overcrowding and overall poor conditions. He made it a mission to see that the patients received better, which in turn would require more money.

Pauls Valley State School for the Mentally “Retarded”

The demand for mental hospitals was proven to be direr than a state hospital for epileptics and so in 1953, it became the Pauls Valley State School for the Mentally “Retarded”. Superintendent J.R. Deacon was appointed the first year and was influential in implementing new standards for the state school. All ages were taken in at Pauls Valley with different wards made for women and men. In December of 1960, a legislative task force visiting the State School revealed problems regarding funds that should have been used for care going toward maintenance of buildings on the 1,000-acre property.

Big changes came just three years later when all schools and hospitals run by the State Department of Mental Health and Retardation were transferred to the State Department of Public Welfare, today that is the Department of Human Services. At the time there were more than a few hundred employees at Pauls Valley, for decades it continued to be Garvin County’s largest employer. With more than 2,000 patients in the Enid and Pauls Valley State Schools overcrowding was a major issue. This lead to a third facility being built in Sand Springs in 1964, Hissom Memorial Center.

Conditions of the state schools continued to be uncovered, in the 1980s an investigation was lead by the U.S. Justice Department into the three state facilities. Officials found that the facility’s conditions “caused grievous harm” to residents. Federal officials threatened the facilities and their superintendents saying funding for the Hissom Memorial, Pauls Valley and Enid centers could be cut back or stopped altogether if conditions weren’t improved.

Enid State School and Pauls Valley State School were renamed in 1992 to Northern and Southern Oklahoma Resource Centers (NORCE) (SORC). Around this time, the public and government’s views of institutionalization and treatment of mentally disabled/ill citizens changed drastically. Over the years it had come to light the poor treatment of individuals within these facilities and many had rallied for deinstitutionalization including President John F. Kennedy. NORCE and SORC worked with residents to try and to integrate them into society. The state schools worked and encouraged residents to move into the community or in with their families if they were able to.

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