UPDATE: On a recent visit in 2023 it has been discovered the gym & the main house are no longer standing. Also, I found another house on a dirt road on the backside of the school property & what looked like a small cafeteria too..

 

After years of documented abuse and consequent lawsuits, Columbia Training School is finally closing its doors to troubled girls. Of the 37 girls who remained at the school, 11 were sent to the Oakley Training School June 11, after state officials had paroled the other 26 into community-based programs. The Columbia Training School in Marion County will officially close June 30. ~ Jackson Free Press

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The Columbia Training School (CTS) in Columbia, Mississippi, was officially opened in 1918. The school was initially proposed by State Representative J. E. Norwood in 1916, with the bill being signed into law by Governor Theodore G. Bilbo on March 28, 1916. The school was established to train delinquent boys and girls and also admitted destitute and abandoned children.