The history—and mystery—of Ocala’s East Hall

A spirit of the past lurks inside East Hall, home of the Marion County Museum of History & Archaeology. Besides the proliferation of age-old artifacts that grace the walls and showcases, shadows of the people who once walked the halls still linger there. Stop for a moment and listen. Subtle whispers speak of troubled lives and the struggle to earn a fresh start.

Nearly 100 years ago, East Hall became part of the Industrial School for Girls, established by the Florida legislature to provide training and guidance to girls sent there because they had either gotten into trouble or were victims of abuse or neglect.

The school first opened in 1915 in a home near the current Cascades office complex in southeast Ocala and was moved in 1917 to what is now the McPherson Complex. Besides East Hall there was a dining hall, a classroom building, several dorms, a chapel, and even a swimming pool—all nestled within a grove of oaks, dogwoods and pecan trees. The dorms were outfitted with cots and a desk, with each dorm having its own house mother. Among them was Mary E. “Miss Molly” Martin, the great-grandmother of Marion County Tax Collector George Albright and grandmother of award-winning journalist/radio personality Buddy Martin.

Designed by architect Frank Parazile, the East Hall’s red brick building was built in 1936 as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal-aided Projects, financed with a Public Works Administration grant of $27,000 that was matched by the state at 45% to 55% to bring the total up to $65,660. Several local contractors were involved in the construction of the Industrial School, including Marion Hardware, Ocala Lumber and Lake Weir Sand Company.

In the beginning, the girls were between 9 and 17 years of age. The age requirement later was changed to ages 12 to 17. In addition to traditional academics, the girls studied home economics and vocational classes such as office work, dental assistance, beauty culture and library services. They also were required to do chores, such as cleaning, laundry and yard work.

“A regular school curriculum was taught,” said Price Landrum, a historian and trustee at the museum. “The classes were supposed to prepare the girls to take their places in the community as productive citizens. At some point, I think they were considered pupils of the Marion County school system, but I’m not sure what kind of diplomas they got.”

The school operated on a point system. The girls needed to acquire a certain number of points to get released, said Landrum.

“If they misbehaved or ran away, points were taken away,” he said. “Most of the time they would go into the subdivisions that were around them and go into homes and try to get food and perhaps a change of clothing, because they had to wear a uniform that was very conspicuous. If you were in East Hall, you had to wear a red uniform.”

East Hall was the place of discipline, said Landrum’s sister, Marylin Corsiglia, a trustee and volunteer guide at the museum.

“Upstairs, the cells were on both sides of the hall facing north,” Corsiglia said. “A house mother or attendant had an apartment on the south side.”

The more serious offenders sometimes ended up in the basement inside a separate cell they referred to as the “isolation box,” Corsiglia said.

The ominous-looking enclosure still exists in the East Hall basement. A wooden door measuring two feet by two feet opens to a long, dark interior.

“It was there that disobedient girls would face hours of solitary confinement,” Corsiglia said.

During a recent visit to the museum, Albright checked out the isolation box and crawled inside to get a feel for what the girls might have experienced. He described it as a damp U-shaped tunnel.

“If the door would have been closed it would have been complete darkness,” Albright said. “You would quickly lose your senses in there in that you would lose time and space. Tragically, you could put a dozen people in there. If you had more than one act up, I think there was a possibility they could put more in there at one time.”

Walking through East Hall today, one might never think it was once such a dreadful place, Albright noted.

“The significance today is, we took a building that represented a lot of bad and turned it into a lot of good—the Marion County Historical Museum,” Albright said. “It’s gone from bad to good. My goal is to expose the bad. The story needs to be told. You don’t incarcerate like this anymore.”

Despite the strict rules and harsh discipline, some of the residents preferred to remain at the school rather than be sent home to an even more abusive environment, Landrum noted.

Over the years, some of the residents revisited the school and revived old memories. One alumnus recalled she’d been assigned there at the age of 15 and had been labeled “uncontrollable.” Another admitted she’d shot her father who, she said, had been abusing her. Still another girl was sentenced there at age 11 by a Miami judge after both of her parents went to prison. She ended up training to be a hairdresser.

Many of the girls went on to live productive lives, Landrum said.

“The most recent one that I talked to had married and had children and I can’t remember what her husband did, but they had a very happy life and she thought that going to the school had been a very good thing for her,” he said. “I’ve only talked to one who did not have a positive experience there.”

A highlight for the girls was the annual Christmas decorating project. Corsiglia, who grew up in Ocala, recalled a gigantic Christmas card display on the grounds.

“Growing up, we would ride by the school every year at Christmas time,” Corsiglia recalled. “The girls would paint these large Christmas cards on plywood. They were wonderfully done, and they would light them up and they would allow the residents of Ocala to drive through and see them. It was almost like a Christmas tradition for a lot of people. As a child I did not know that East Hall was the isolation building. I just remember that we were able to drive through and see the Christmas cards.”

One of the longtime superintendents of the school was Alyce D. McPherson, for whom the government complex is named. In 1984, the school was closed. In 1986, the county purchased the property and designated much of it for government offices like drivers’ licenses, EMT services and the county’s IT department, which once was the cafeteria.

“We know that that was the cafeteria because when they went to redo it for offices, there was a walk-in freezer in there,” Landrum said. “It would have cost more to take it out than it did to drywall around it, so they drywalled around it. It’s still there.”

In 1990, the badly deteriorating East Hall was renovated through several contributions, including a $63,000 grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources.

These days, visitors to East Hall can follow a chronological display of photos, documents and artifacts dating back to the arrival of the Europeans. Among the remnants from the Industrial School is a floor rug someone crocheted from strips taken from the girls’ uniforms. Such items serve as a reminder that the school was more than just a building, said Landrum.

“It’s important that the story is told of what the school was,” Landrum said. “It was about trying to improve these girls’ lives. The school was a refuge for some of the girls, because it was better than the place they had to go back to if they had a place to go back to at all.”

The Marion County Historical Commission recently sponsored the purchase of a large historical marker that will be placed on an eight-foot post on the grounds near the East Hall. Funds were provided by the Marion County Board of County Commissioners. The text was approved by the state of Florida. An unveiling ceremony will take place in the near future, Landrum said.

East Hall is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day except Wednesday and Sunday. It’s located at 307 SE 26^th Terrace in the McPherson County Government Complex. Admission is $3. Children 13 and under are admitted free. To schedule a guided tour, call (352) 236-5245.