Abilene State Supported Living Center
Abilene State Supported Living Center, located in Abilene, is home to approximately 500 people with developmental disabilities. Among amenities are two guest houses for visiting family members, a nature area, and a large park and playground area. The nature area and park are open to the public.
The site that was to become Abilene State School was originally a State Epileptic Colony. The project was launched in 1897 when Governor Joseph D. Sayers appointed a commission to select the site. The institution was to be patterned after the Craig Colony in New York, and was originally intended to house five hundred people.
Citizens of Abilene were eager to have the state select a nearby site, for the boost it would provide to the local economy. Since the water supply was poor, residents banded together to purchase land to build Lytle Lake. Citizens also donated $3,200 for the city to purchase 640 acres (2.6 km2) of land to be given to the state for the institution.The Texas legislature unanimously approved the site in February 1899.
Construction, coordinated by Dr. John Preston, cost $200,000. The project consisted of an administration building, a power plant, one hospital each for men and women, four cottages, and a residence for the superintendent. The State Epileptic Colony was officially opened on March 26, 1904, with a population of 104 patients. Some were admitted free, and others paid $5 a week for room, board, medication, and care. By August 1904, the population was 201.Dr. T.B.Bass served as superintendent from 1909 to 1943. During his tenure, droughts caused water shortages and hurt crop production. World War I siphoned off staff, and wartime inflation caused fiscal hardship. The institution faced outbreaks of flu, small pox, and measles.
In 1925, the State Epileptic Colony began admitting residents with mental illness as well as those with epilepsy. The name was changed to Abilene State Hospital.
The campus had expanded to sixty-three buildings by 1943, including officers' quarters, physicians' cottages, two hospitals, twenty-eight "wards", and a number of barns. The population of patients grew to 1,324.
Dr. Bass retired in 1943, and the institution went through a series of superintendents while the facility continued to expand. In 1949, the hospital began accepting African-American patients. Medical treatment was considered state-of-the-art, and the facility was self-sufficient. Mrs. May Corley, the hospital's first sociologist, said, "Everybody who lived and worked here had a job to do."
In 1957, the name of the facility was changed to Abilene State School, due to a shift in purpose to caring for people with developmental disabilities. This also allowed for the admission of children. M.J. Kelly, director for the State Board of Hospitals and Special Schools, said, "Instead of making these institutions places to retain patients, we intend to make them centers for curing patients and putting them on the road to recovery. We want all those children who can learn to receive the best of instruction." On October 31, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed a bill providing federal aid for research, training, and rehabilitation for people with mental retardation throughout the country, which allowed increases in staff-to-patient ratios.
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