Lakin Industrial School

Not to be confused with Lakin State Hospital (or as it was formerly known...The WV Hospital for the Colored Insane which was located across the street).

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 African American 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 that 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. HPIR toured the wreckage before it was completely cleaned up, and I may have been misty eyed from losing the first place I ever REALLY investigated, but throughout the evening, I kept seeing a seventh investigator with us that night; a man in a brown suit.

Reports of ghostly activity include people being pushed down the stairs, EVPs, light anomalies, and apparitions are common. I met a guy from the area who SWEARS he went to school with a guy who was thrown off the roof of the main building. He and a group of guys were up there doing whatever teenage guys do, and as they were leaving, one of the guys reported the 'victim' was lifted off his feet and thrown backwards. The guy survived the three story fall, but was in a coma for awhile. When he came out of the coma, he denied falling or jumping, but claimed he didn't remember anything about what had happened.