Overview

Begun in the mid-1850s, the first wing of the San Francisco Industrial School, a quasi-public reformatory for abandoned and delinquent children, opened in 1859. The building was completed by 1865. In the wake of the Gold Rush's rapid urbanization of Yerba Buena into San Francisco, children began to appear on the city's streets, and city officials quickly adopted the nationally popular concept of building a "House of Refuge" to sequester them away from the city proper and to provide them some instruction and structure.

Building History

San Francisco grew almost overnight from a hamlet of 1,000 in 01/1848 to 25,000 people by 12/1849. The city's remarkable growth brought significant infrastructure and social welfare problems during the early 1850s. A significant social problem became the many children abandoned or delinquent running loose without parents or guardians. In response, city administrators devised setting up a work house for children in 1855 to teach them discipline and industry. Unfortunately, a series of bank insolvencies during 1855-1856 drained San Francisco's ability to pay for a new social welfare institution. It wasn't until 04/15/1858 that the State of California passed the Industrial School Act that chartered the reformatory and allocated $20,000 for its construction. The State provided this money and a monthly stipend of $1,000 contingent that the county government raise an additional $10,000 for the project. The state decreed that a president and vice-president be elected by a private, 12-member Indistrial School Board of Managers, three of whom would be ex officio members of the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors.

A parcel of land set well beyond the city limits of the time, on the northwest corner of the San Jose Road and Ocean House Road, was purchased in c. 1854 for $10,000. On its history web site, the California State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation described the school's operations: "The San Francisco Industrial School was founded on May 5, 1859, by an act of the California State Legislature. The school opened with a total of 48 boys and girls, ranging from 3-18 years of age and included a staff of six. It was run by a private board. Management could accept children from parents and police, as well as from the courts. The program consisted of six hours per day of school (classroom) and four hours per day work. Trade training was added later. Releases were obtained by (1) discharge, (2) indenture, and (3) leave of absence—a system very similar to present-day probation and/or parole. (See California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, “The History of the DIvision of Juvenile Justice: 1859,” accessed 05/16/2020.) Initially, boys and girls were housed in the same building, but this changed in 1868, when girls were sent to the Roman Catholic Magdalen Asylum in San Francisco.

Construction was incremental after the State passed the Industrial School Act of 1858. The building's south wing was completed by 1859, and the north in 1865. Five years later, in 1870, the City added a jail, the House of Correction, next door to the Industrial School, and together these facilities operated for about twenty years, far removed from decent society in the city proper. A wooden fence separated the prison from the children's work house, with armed guards supervising the convicts and unarmed guards keeping an eye on the children.

Conditions in the Industrial School were never good. Historian David Macallair has written of it: “Structurally incapable of acting as a surrogate parent, the Industrial School, like similar institutions, degenerated into a coercive, impersonal, and abusive environment that bred despondency and disaffection. In the Industrial School’s congregate structure, order could only be maintained by enforcing rigid adherence to organizational authority. In addition, despite the rhetoric of Industrial School proponents, the youths remanded to its care were viewed as products of an inferior class who were incapable of benefitting from anything other than elementary training. The school’s mission was further compromised by the need to achieve a level of financial self-sufficiency. This prerequisite was a common ingredient of nineteenth-century institutions. The result was insufficient resources and an inability to provide anything but the most rudimentary training. Despite the lack of resources, managers struggled to promote the institution’s survival through optimistic pronouncements or by minimizing problems.” (See Daniel E. Macallair, After the Doors Were Locked: A History of Youth Corrections in California and the Origins of Twenty-First-Century Reform, [Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleflield, 2015], p. 38.)

Efforts began by some almost immediately to provide children with better accommodations. A new facility, the State Reform School for Boys in Marysville, opened in 1860, but failed in 1868. At this time, 28 boys from Marysville were sent to the SF Industrial School at this time, with the State kicking in more money for their support. Agitation for the school's closure built by 1890. An article in the San Francisco Examiner stated in 11/1891: "There seems no reason to doubt now that the Industrial School will soon become a thing of the past, in accordance with the wishes of those officials and public-spirited private citizens who have so long been convinced of the fact that the institution has always fallen utterly short of accomplishing the objects for which it was created.” (See Calisphere.org, “To Be Closed at Last,” article from the San Francisco Examiner, 11/01/1891.)Its end finally occurred in 1890-1891, when the State of California opened reformatories in Whittier and Ione, respectively. Inmates from San Francisco were ordered transferred to the new Whittier faciility in 11/1891 and the building closed by early 1892.

Once the children were relocated, the San Francisco Sherriff utilized half of the Industrial School building for a women's prison. It operated as a women's jail until 04/18/1906, when the Great Earthquake damaged one half of the building, requiring its demolition. In 1904, San Francisco voters approved $604,000 in bonds to fund a new county jail and additions to the Hall of Justice. County officials obtained additional money in another ballot measure of 1908. (See Law v. City and County of San Francisco et al., [S.F. 3,870.], Supreme Court of California,144 Cal. 384, decided 08/15/1904, Pacific Reporter, vol. 77, p. 1015.)

At that time, planning began for the reuse of land on which the School of Industry and House of Correction had stood. They decided to provide one part of the parcel to the San Francisco Fire Department nearest to the corner of Ocean and San Jose. The San Francisco Police Department received a chunk for a station. The remaining land went to create Balboa Park and, in 1937, the Ocean Campus of the City College of San Francisco.

Demolition

The San Francisco Industrial School was razed. Buildings of the City College of San Francisco, including part of Ram Stadium, were erected on its site.

PCAD id: 23457