Abilene State School

The colony stood on 640 acres the city of Abilene donated: forty acres of brick buildings, 400 acres under cultivation and 200 in pasture. Its first patients arrived on March 26, 1904. Treatment meant diet, hygiene, regular habits and exercise; the state treated the poor free, and others paid five dollars a week. The name changed to Abilene State Hospital in 1925. A 1949 law opened it to Black patients, but none was admitted until two wards for them were finished in 1952. Livestock operations ended in 1963, and by 1964 fifteen single-story units had replaced the original buildings.

What the plaque says

The Texas Legislature provided for the establishment of this institution in 1899 as a center for the treatment of epilepsy. Opened in 1904 under the direction of Dr. John Preton, it was largely self-sufficient, with surrounding land used for raising crops and livestock. Significant research on epilepsy was conducted here by Dr. T. B. Bass, superintendent from 1909 to 1943. A residential facility since 1957, the Abilene State School has developed a leading program of quality care for the mentally retarded based on innovative ideas and widespread community support. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 2.1 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 11 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 16 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Abilene State Park — 16 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Parramore Post #57, American Legion — 1.3 mi
• McMurry College — 1.6 mi
• 45th Infantry Division at Camp Barkeley — 1.9 mi
• Taylor, Edward, James, & George — 1.9 mi