| City/Town: • Sand Springs |
| Location Class: • Hospital • School |
| Built: • 1964 | Abandoned: • 1993 |
| Status: • Demolished |
| Photojournalist: • Billy Dixon • David Linde • Johnny Fletcher |
Only a million dollars was approved for a new state school in 1958, but Person Woodall, chairman of the Mental Health Board, estimated the new school would cost around seven million dollars. State Bond Issue 393 approved the funding in 1960, with the new hospitals’ location being Sand Springs. Wiley G. Hissom, a local hobby cattle farmer, donated all of the land to Oklahoma State University for the state’s new hospital.
Construction on the facility began in the fall of 1961, and the name Hissom Memorial Center was chosen. Murray Jones Murray were hired as the principal architect and McCune, McCune & Associates as the associated architect firm.
After almost five years in the making, the center finally opened on March 5, 1964, as a diagnostic treatment, rehabilitation, training, and research community center providing in and outpatient services. The twenty-four buildings spanned across 85 of the 226 acres donated, forming a campus. The capacity of the hospital was 1200, and the first patients were brought in from Eastern State Hospital, with those from Pauls Valley and Enid State Schools following.
Children would first go through the diagnostic and evaluation step of the process when an application to admit is made. The child’s needs are assessed to see if entering the program or receiving outpatient services would be better instead. If deemed necessary, the child would enter the residential program and begin treatment. The center also provided training and teaching for those wanting to be involved in health care, allowing those who graduate from the program to work and live on the grounds.
Children attended classes for two and a half hours a day during the school term and special classes during the summer months. In addition, a number of physical and recreational programs as well, making use of a swimming pool, gymnasium, and other outdoor activities. Students would occasionally go on field trips for educational exposure.
Hissom employed around five hundred people and housed around six hundred pupils in the 1970s. The maximum fee for a child was $75 per month, with some paying less or none at all. Age requirements for admittance were six to eighteen and the child will stay in the program until the staff believes they have reached maximum potential. An annual Parent Guardian Association open house was held to celebrate the children’s accomplishments over the year. But the once marveled ‘City of Hope’ didn’t last for long.
The year 1985 was one that uprooted a handful of misconduct at the Hissom Memorial Center. Starting with a lawsuit against the facility by a nurse and the parents of six children who attended. Claims that the center was a dangerous place to live and should be shut down. One of those suits named Herbito Martinez as a defendant. He was fired and sentenced to two and a half years in prison for using fake credentials to practice as a doctor. Investigators were appointed by a federal judge to investigate the conditions.
They found and reported a “prison-like atmosphere” and considered Hissom Memorial a “human-development emergency” and an “educational disaster.” Two more men were charged with abusing the children in the facility. U.S. District Judge James Ellison ordered the facility to close in 1987 and that its residents must be moved to community homes. But in 1988, the state of Oklahoma appealed Ellison’s ruling to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
This eventually led to Homeward Bound Inc., organized by the parents, and the Department of Human Services to agree to a consent decree. This gave a deadline of October 1994 for moving the remaining four hundred Hissom Memorial Center patients into the community and putting an end to the appeals. They chose the nine-year anniversary of the lawsuit, May 2, 1994, as the date to officially close the center after spending $133 million to move all of its patients.
Gallery Below of Hissom Memorial Center
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For anyone interested in learning more about Hissom, the Oklahoma Developmental Disabilities Council produced a 50 minute documentary on it called "Living in the Freedom World". There is a lot of footage of site and interviews with former residents, parents, and workers. You can stream it for free on Vimeo:
I worked there, my mother worked there, my paternal grandmother worked there, and my maternal grandmother spent a brief time there doing diagnostics for a seizure disorder. I know that there were a lot of things that happened that were not right… BUT I know that the most of the people who worked there were caring people, who did the best they could with the extremely limited resources. And I do mean EXTREMELY limited. The state set it up to be state of the art, diagnostic and rehabilitative care facility. Then proceeded to limit the money spent on it. I… Read more »
Thank you Gypsy: I also work at hissom from 1979 to 1989 I don't know where these people get all these stories from about the "Clients" being abused. I myself and many other staff workers were the one's abused I was Hit, scratched, bit, slapped, pushed, had urin and feces throwed on me, and still I continued to work with these clients, all the staff I knew cared deeply for these clients, I even brought a few of them home with me for holidays as their "Parents" or family NEVER came to see them. I worked double shifts many times… Read more »
I worked there from 1990 to 1992 never seen clients getting abused. I was bitten several time and scratched but I continue to take care of my clients I treated them like they were part of my family.
Ism looking for 2 girls that were there named harbor can you check and see jif you family might remember them drop a line here. Thanks
I am the daughter of the first Superintendent of Hissom Memorial, opened in 1964. He, as well as my mother, were dedicated to the welfare of disabled children and adults. As a result of my parents influence, I spent 37 years in the field of Special Education.
I also volunteered at Hissom Memorial…it was among the best times in my life!
my grandmother also worked there and my bestfriends aunt did to!!! you can stop lieing there are more people that say horriblt things went on there.. i have even went as far as contacting people that adopted a girl from there BECAUSE SHE HAS ROACHES CRAWLING OUT OF HER EAR the attorney that represented this case and got the hell hole shut down did it for a reason my cousin was handicapped before he passed in 2005 and you people try to pretend that you like them an when its just you an them behind closed doors their your door… Read more »
My parents were dedicated, beyond belief, to the needs of disabled children and adults! They opened Hissom in 1964, but moved on only a year later, after my dad had a major heart attack on the Hissom grounds. How dare you to disgrace and belittle my parents! What happened years later was none of their doing! My parents are long since dead, but we children continue their passion to care for mentally challenged children/adults. After 37 years in Special Education, I am now retired, but continue to volunteer on behalf of the mentally challenged. Just wondering how you are helping… Read more »
dorothy, my brother was a long time resident of hissom from 1972 until it closed in 1994. I appreciate the effort that you have made in the care of these patients. My mother was quite against the homeward bound lawsuit but i will have to say that since he was placed into group care he has progressed farther than i would have ever imagined.He could not feed himself when he left hissom and now he can perform many of his activities on his own. Of course this is not the fault of Hissom itself but the inability of these types… Read more »
As an added note Melissa, over my 37 years in Special Education, I cared for for the severely disabled, as did my father and mother. I've changed the diapers of hundreds of chilldren and young adults, fed them, because they can't feed themselves, been a supportive teacher,loved them, and consider myself blessed for knowing these special people! Want to talk about roaches? A young 9 year old student of mine arrived in my classroom and roaches were crawling everywhere out of the wheelchair and on the child.I immediately called social services. I ended up as a witness in court, and… Read more »
Melissa, I spent 34 years of my life devoted to physically and mentally challenged children/adults. I have precious memories and am a better person for being part of their lives. I thank my parents for my choice to enter into the field of Special Education. You have chosen to crucify my parents, for their one year at Hissom Memorial. What you don't know, is that my parents were all about group homes and making the handicapped part of society! My father, before he became interested in children with special needs, was just a country doctor, and literally rode horseback to… Read more »
Looking for info about 2 girls named harbor who lived there know of them pleas writ here if you do,
Hi, just saw your post. I am trying to track down a former patient there and wondered if you had any ideas on how i might go about doing that? any help would be appreciated greatly-davemahaffey@yahoo.com
Dorothy I just read your statement written about hissom over a year ago.. I knew of hissom. But didnt really know about all the horrible things that went on there.. You make your statement but mentioned nothing about the bad things.. the reality of it is.. hissom started out as an ideal place for people with disabilities. its not that the parents did not want the children. they thought they were doing what was best for them by placing them somewhere where there were more "people like them". I must admit some parents were embarrased by their children and put… Read more »
Thanks to you and your parents for what you did for those children Dorothy
Dorothy .. thank you for your service to the mentally handicapped , i understand that it wasn't the place that was bad but when it changed superintendents the new people made it bad and abused the patients . I'm friends with an 18 year old girl who is mentally handicapped and she's very kind and smart , she may not be able to walk or do anything for herself but she's getting the best care she possibly can and has many normal friends who like her for her personality. And my second cousin is mentally handicapped and has the mind… Read more »
all of you people who published these pictures should post that they were taken after closing. not every one knows why the place closed butt every one wants a piece of it now but not then. a lot of the old residents of hissom would reather go back home to hissom then be were they are now.
Dont judge if you werent there. Thousands of people have worked there and many worked in community programs after the closing. Many of the former residents grieve for the place. It was not what it was painted to be by the media and the money hungry Bullocks and there crooked judge Ellison. There were 6 parents, bitter angry people involved out of 100 or more against the closing. It was politics at its corrupt worse.
I’m Rod Smith, brother to Christopher Ray Smith who lived at this place for years. I for one hope the murderers of my brother burn in hell and would be very happy to dance on the ashes of Hissom…
Open it back up end homlessness
Where did they move the people that was there when it closed
I had a brother there in they sent him there in the late in the late 60s
They turned into the streets
in 1965 I was employed at at the Hissom memorial center with it being titled the 1st intergrated rehabilitated center in the South and south west also becoming part of the first African Americans to be employed there.l was selected by Lloyd Rader secretary of health and human services of Oklahoma State
[…] 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. […]
I would also like to see footage !!:) please and thank you !
I dont know if this is still there or not i would love to go in there , i probably did when i was a child , my older sister was here and died there
Hi Kathy, it has been demolished. Sorry to hear about your sister..
thanks for sharing. nice!
Guys it was not the place that was bad but the people working there a building can hurt someone
Can't*
I worked at Hissom in the summer of 1968 as a recreation assistant.. It was a wonderful job and I met many great people.. The residents were sweet children and I never saw any abuse or heard of anything negative happening at the center.. Later that year, I came back to Hissom as a practice teacher and lived with 3 other girls In site who were also students getting their degree at OSU.. Those two experiences I treasure and am so sorry that the center came to such a negative end.. I can only think that a lack of good… Read more »
It makes me sick to think about the abuse that these poor people went through because they were different then us
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Hissom has been completely destroyed. We went to explore there and found nothing but bulldozed lots.
so has hissom been demolished?
My sister in Hissom…when I went to visit her she was like a zombie, and laid like an over dosed human. It was sad…Yesterday..with all the red tape….she now lives with me. She is FREE! Its so difficult when you deal with DHS and other agency that were assigned to care of the clients. BUT yesterday..we freed our sister from the clutches of Hissom's nightmare!
I am a care provider for 2 individuals who transitioned out if Hissiom I have been with them now for over 20 years is there anyway to access pics that were taken there or acces their medical files? Both would b extremely helpul, one of my 'boys' came from a poor family and we have no pics of him at all from birth to18, please any info would b helpful on finding their records and photographs!
Do you know where they moved the people after they closed I had a brother there