Preston Castle

The Preston School of Industry in Ione, a reform school for male youths that opened in 1894. Its head housekeeper, Anna Corbin, was killed in 1950 and the case was left unresolved.

Preston Castle is the name given to the Preston School of Industry in Ione, a reform school for male youths. The Preston Castle Foundation says the school took its first wards on 13 June 1894 and opened officially on 1 July that year. Electric light arrived the next year, from a dynamo driven by a Pelton water wheel.

Two killings at the school are on record. In 1950 Anna Corbin, the school's head housekeeper, was killed. The Sacramento Bee, citing foundation president Karl Knobelauch, reports that a ward was charged with her murder and acquitted, and that the case stayed unsolved. The Sierra Lodestar wrote that her killing threw suspicion on many wards. It also records that a teacher, James Wieden, was later killed, a death it says shocked staff and inmates alike.

The building later drew paranormal television. Wikipedia notes that Ghost Adventures devoted the first episode of its second season to Preston Castle, and the Sacramento Bee's headline pairs its striking architecture with its dark past.