Preston Castle and its history (13 photos + 1 video)

One of the oldest reform schools in the United States is now abandoned. But public interest in Preston Castle does not diminish.





Construction of this Romanesque castle, covering an area of ​​more than four thousand square meters and consisting of 120 rooms, began in 1890. The building's bricks were made by inmates at Folsom and San Quentin prisons and shipped by rail to Ione in the Sierra Foothills, where the castle was built.



The state Legislature ordered the construction of a building that was to serve as a correctional facility for juvenile offenders. By 1894, the castle was completed and the Preston Industrial School opened there. In this school, built on a military model, students spent half the day studying, and the other half learning a craft that could provide them with a comfortable future after liberation. This building served as a reform school until 1960, when it was moved to new buildings nearby.





For the next 40 years the castle remained derelict until it was given a fifty-year lease to the Preston Castle Trust in 2001. Since then, he has been preserving and restoring the building, which has become a California historical landmark.



Preston Industrial School was conceived as a place where unlucky boys would have the opportunity to get a decent education and gain a profession

It has long been said that the castle is inhabited by ghosts who simply had to choose such a picturesque place with a corresponding history. And it has been repeatedly explored by ghost hunters of all stripes and ranks.



The place where Anna Corbin was found

Over the years of Preston Castle's existence, several deaths have occurred there. But the main ghost and guardian is believed to be Anna Corbin, the housekeeper who was found beaten to death in 1950. For those who want to try their luck and personally meet the ghostly inhabitants of the castle, special night tours are organized. For just $100, you can try to negotiate with phantoms so that they will come down to the living and show themselves. Almost every Saturday, prosaic daytime excursions are held here.



Rory Calhoun

Once upon a time, the future beat hero Neal Cassidy, who became famous as a “world-famous prototype” because he served as the prototype for many literary heroes, spent his youth within these walls, country musician Merle Haggard, actors Lee Jay Cobb and Rory Calhoun and writer Eddie Bunker.