History of Oakdale fact Sheet by the Mural Group

The History Of Oakdale

The names of Oakdale

• Michigan Home for the Feebleminded and Epileptic

• Michigan Home and Training School

• Lapeer State Home and Training School

• Oakdale Center for Developmental Disabilities

Opened:

August 1825

Closed:

October 1991

Center closed because:

The number of residents declined due to the shift of housing patients in group’s homes.

Effect of closing on Community:

• More than six hundred lay off.

• All buildings torn down except 45 (Mott College), 71 (Chatfield), and Woodside, or now Rolland-Warner.

Changes to the Facility:

• September 11, 1895: School Opened

• March 1904: Administration building added

• 1910: Small Pox epidemic

• 1973: Castle torn down after a fire, 71 yr. old

Purpose of facility:

• To house the mentally handicapped, disabled, and orphaned children.

• They often picked children off the streets.

Effect on the Community:

• It brought thousands of residents to Lapeer to be a patient, or an employee.

• It gave work, and help to those who needed it.

Number of people who worked there:

• The facility had 1,100 employees at its highest point in 1950.

Jobs were:

• farming,

• housekeeping,

• cooking

• Nurses, doctors, medical

• Maintenance

• Teachers

• Administration

Amount of people housed there:

• 1895-200

• 1938-3,804

• 1953-4,400

• 1964-4,448

The End of Oakdale:

• 191 acres for a dollar

• Bought by Lapeer

• Left Mott, Chatfield, Cemetery,

old play ground equipment, Dolphin statue, Woodside.

Purchase of the facility

What life was like for residents?


• Dances

• Movies

• Skating

• Baseball

• Picnics

• Parties

• Off-Site work

• School

Number of buildings:

• 115 buildings

• 2 schools

• 2 hospitals

• Laundry Building

• Bakery

• Kitchen

• Cathedral

• Residences

• Nursery

• 38 farm building

• Administration building

Dairy farm

• 225 milking cows

• 1500 chickens that laid eggs

• 100 acre garden

• 600 hogs

• 450 registered Holsteins-most registered in Michigan at the time

• All meat was slaughtered at the Facility’s slaughterhouse

Purchase of the Facility

• The city bought the facility from the state for a dollar (191 acres)

• a non-for-profit restriction to be lifted cost the city $800,000 to the state

• city had to pay $200,000 to $300,000 to clean up asbestos and other contaminants