Corsicana State Home

Schools Index || Photographs || City of Corsicana

CORSICANA STATE HOME. Corsicana State Home, formerly the State Orphans' Home, was established in 1887 by an act of the Twelfth Legislature to support, educate, and care for orphan or dependent children. It opened on July 15, 1889, and housed fifty-four children the first year. In 1932 the home reached a peak enrollment of 890. During the 1940s the enrollment began to decline, and by 1945 the facility housed only 443 children. By 1948 the orphanage, located three miles west of the Corsicana business district, had twenty-one brick structures and a number of small frame cottages, barns, and outbuildings on 417 acres. In its early years the home operated its own independent school district with a grade school, junior high, and high school. In addition to academic subjects the school offered courses in various vocational fields, including cosmetology, mechanics, printing, agriculture, home economics, and business. Until the 1960s the institution also operated its own farms, dairy, creamery, laundry, cannery, store, power plant, bakery, kitchen, and hospital. Older children worked part-time in these operations and thus received practical training. In 1957 the institution was renamed Corsicana State Home. The home was integrated in the mid-1960s and is now operated under the administration of the Texas Youth Commission.^qv After World War II^qv the school was closed down, and children from the home began to attend the Corsicana public schools. In 1989 the institution served sixty-six children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Files, Texas Youth Commission, Austin. Texas State Board of Control, Report.

James W. Markham and William T. Field

"CORSICANA STATE HOME." The Handbook of Texas Online.

See Also:

The Cedar - Yearbook of the State Home