Warning: some may find the phrases in the images disturbing. Viewer discretion recommended. The buildings featured in the first half of this photo gallery no longer exist.
The Old Fairview Training Center Buildings (Jan. 2019)
Fairview Post-Demolition (Oct. 2020)
History of Fairview Training Center
By Alisa Dougherty
The Fairview Training Center was established in 1907 as the “State Institution for the Feeble-Minded.” The state institution opened a year later in 1908 and took in patients with intellectual and learning disabilities. The purpose was to educate and care for the “feeble-minded, idiotic and epileptic.”
Run by the State of Oregon, employees performed forced and illegal sterilizations and were known to abuse patients routinely. Inhumane methods of restraining patients were used including containment equipment and high doses of sedatives and other medications. These methods were used up until the 1980s when federal funding was ended due to continuing human rights violations in the mistreatment of residents.
The institution completely closed in 2000 and has been almost entirely torn down in recent years. Before demolition, Fairview’s abandoned buildings were a popular haunt for youth to sneak into and explore. Debris littered the hallways and old rooms. Graffiti covered almost all of the remaining walls. The messages included expletives, explicit language, violent phrases, satanic symbols, and more.
Because of the dark history and many deaths that occured within the walls, the training center was rumored to be haunted and ghost stories abound. People who visited before the recent demolitions reported seeing figures and feeling haunting presences wandering around the old buildings.
Only a single building now remains of the main complex. The building is being preserved for historical purposes and is fully boarded up and alarmed. In place of many of the old structures are piles of rubble and debris from the demolition.
