HISTORICAL SPOTLIGHT
On June 1, 1895, the Pennsylvania Soldiers' Orphans Industrial School opened on this campus to 240 students to consolidate the various Pennsylvania Soldiers' Orphan schools in this one location. These schools were founded to care for and educate orphans of fallen soldiers of the Civil War. Original plans called for sixteen double cottages each housing sixty students. Their location was to be facing the Administration building around the center oval. Sadly, the first cottage came thirty-five years later. In its early years, living quarters for staff and students, dining room, and classrooms were relegated to this one building pictured above. In a situation inconceivable to our hyper-communication era, no telegraph equipment existed until Western Union installed equipment in the school's second year!
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