Investigation Location:

Lakin School For Colored Boys

Lakin, West Virginia

November 2006

Historic Information:

 Lakin Industrial School for Colored Boys was built in 1924 as a home for delinquent, but not violent juvenile offenders.  It was established by three black legislators, T.G Nutter, Harry Capehart, and T.J. Coleman, as a state funded institution.  It was the first of several institutions of its kind, built just outside Pt. Pleasant in Lakin, WV.

For over thirty years, the boys and staff worked the surrounding farm, making them almost completely self-sufficient.  In the 1940s, a gymnasium and several smaller buildings were added to the property.  In 1956, the school shut down as Brown v. Board of Education led to the gradual desegregation of public schools, and the boys were sent to the industrial school in Pruntytown, WV.

The property was then acquired by the WV Department of Health and Human Services, who then incorporated it into the WV Hospital for the Colored Insane, located just across the road.  Today the hospital is mostly torn down, and what is left is now part of a nursing home.

In 1976, the property was transferred over to WV Department of Agriculture and operated as a state farm until the early 1990s.  Today the property is owned by AEP.  The original Lakin Industrial School and several surrounding buildings were torn down in November, 2006 to make room for AEP’s River Operations.

 

Overview:

We decided to go pay a last chance visit to Lakin only to discover it had all ready been torn down. We walked around the area for a bit and took pictures, and we decided to go explore the few buildings that remained on the property. One investigator saw what she believed was a man in a brown suit, however no others witnessed this apparition and evidence of him was not found or of any other unusual activity.