Wrentham State School

Wrentham State School is a 700-acre campus north of Wrentham center, laid out around landscaped greens with red-brick wards, staff housing, an administration building, an auditorium, vocational workshops, an infirmary, and a working farm area. Authorized in 1906 as Massachusetts' second school for the "feeble-minded," it opened in 1910 and grew under Superintendent Dr. George L. Wallace, who served from 1907 to 1930. Kendall & Taylor designed most buildings, which progress from Craftsman-style cruciform wards to Colonial Revival structures of the 1920s and 1930s. Early pupils from the Fernald School helped build and outfit the campus. The school was the state's first to use standardized plans for wards and employee housing, which Belchertown State School later adopted. Farming supplied vegetables, eggs, milk and meat. Some buildings have been lost and later additions made, but the layout and early character remain. It was listed for its role in educating developmentally disabled children and for its architecture, with a significance period of 1906 to 1940.