Qualla: West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys

West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Between 1891 and 1983, courts in West Virginia sent boys between the ages of twelve and twenty to a single institution near Pruntytown, just outside Grafton. Some were sentenced by criminal courts for felonies. Many more were sentenced by juvenile courts and justices of the peace for vaguely defined offenses: 'incorrigibility' and 'immorality,' words that could mean almost anything depending on who was deciding. For nearly a century, the West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys was where the state put children it did not know what else to do with. The building closed in 1983. The story is uncomfortable. It is also part of how American juvenile justice grew, and ultimately changed.

West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys: The Reform School Idea

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Industrial Home for Boys opened in 1891 as part of a national wave of so-called reform schools that promised to rehabilitate young offenders through structured work, discipline, and basic schooling. The premise was that a boy could be redirected from a life of petty crime if ...

West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys: What Counted as a Crime

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The sentencing categories tell a great deal. Criminal courts referred boys for felonies. But juvenile courts and justices of the peace - lower-court officials with broad discretion - referred boys for 'incorrigibility and immorality.' Those terms applied to behavior that ranged f...

West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys: The Slow Reform of Juvenile Justice

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Beginning in the 1970s, American juvenile justice underwent a substantial rethinking. The Supreme Court's In re Gault decision in 1967 had already established that juveniles facing detention deserved due process protections similar to adults: notice of charges, the right to couns...

West Virginia Industrial Home for Boys: Closure and What Came After

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1983, the Industrial Home for Boys closed. The girls' facility at Salem was redesignated the West Virginia Industrial Home for Youth, and the remaining boys were transferred there. The Pruntytown grounds did not stay empty. In 1985, the state opened the Pruntytown Correctional...