The story is really amazing, surprising and at times, unpleasant. The history of the castle is on the Preston Castle page, but it does not include the darker stories you hear on tour or in the town.

If you are into ghosts, old buildings, architect, photography, or even trippy places, Preston Castle is a MUST. The local graveyard sports headstones dating back to the early 1800's, too.

Started in 1890 and opened in 1894, this was the local boys prison aka reformatory. 46,000 square feet, basement (on the ground level) a bell tower and four stories.

To quote the web page:
The first floor would house a reception and Director’s room, general office with a walk in vault, reception room, sitting room, a butler's pantry, a dining room, employee lavatory, physician office, pharmacy, clerk’s office plus three additional offices.
The first floor annex would include a dining room. (This became the infirmary?)
The second floor would include a reading room, library, twelve chambers, a school room, coat and hat room, men's water closet and women's lavatory.
The second floor annex would hold a dormitory, a locker room, and a linen room. A mezzanine level was to provide two bathrooms with three bathtubs.
The third and fourth floors would remain unfinished.
The third floor would contain twelve rooms and the fourth floor was designed to have six rooms.
The basement would include a play room, water closet (long urinal and nine toilets), laundry, lavatory with foot bath, shower room and decontamination plunge bath, hall, kitchen, pantry, furnace room, fuel storage room, and a water closet with two toilets.
The basement annex would hold a bakery, fuel storage room, kitchen, pantry, storeroom, and the employee's laundry and lavatory.

Because it is my dream to plot the Winchester, and because I am addicted to old houses, architect, drawing and Auto Cad, my slightly incorrect but hopefully to be fixed soon floor plans for the Preston Castle are here.

You had to be pretty bad to be put here, although the 'home' also housed abandoned, young boys whose families became unable to care for them. Very sad. There were many famous inmates, including Merle Haggard and actor Rory Calhoun. Wikipedia lists the building as the Preston School of Industry as well as the infamous line of inmates. There is a stunning collection of photos by Eleanor as well as other artists. Reportedly, there were twelve deaths, most from illnesses and such, plus Anna Corbin's murder and a boy shot in the back while trying to escape. The guard's hands were 'slapped.' Photos of the graveyard and each grave is here.

The castle is cuddled up next to the current Ione Youth Prison, complete with classic beanstalk guard towers, and a good giant's stone's throw from Mule Creek Prison, the nastiest prison in California with meanest, hardest core inmates available, including one of the Menedez brothers, Herbert Mullin and Charles "Tex" Watson of Charlie Manson fame. Yee haw. The stones were made in Folsom and San Quentin. Ironic, no? In 1960, the new prison was completed, the old abandoned. The beautiful Romanesque building fell into severe disrepair until the Preston Foundation took over in 2001. Their restoration continues, thankfully, today. Take the tour, help support the restorations!

There are four floors, a basement, and a bell tower. The basement is at ground level, making it odd to track which floor you are referring to.

I did not manage to keep a record of what rooms were where, and I forgot to bring bread crumbs. My description of the castle could very easily be incorrect, but I will do my best from memory and the incomplete photos. If you think this is confusing, try being there. In the dark.

1st floor: (see map) The front steps lead up through the porch and to the first floor. Once inside, you see a short hallway, administration rooms to the left and the right. A fireplace on the left, a safe and a corner drinking fountain on the right. Open the door on the top of the drinking fountain base and you see a deep, aluminum sided box with water pipes circling the sides. Ice placed in the 'cooler' provides cold drinking water. I was tickled to see that one. These rooms are painted white and nicely restored. Pass through the doors in the hallway towards the back of the castle and the pristine paint comes to a screeching stop. The rest of the castle is in severe disrepair, a serious state of rot and decay, heavy with debris of every kind, absolutely breath taking. Take a step or two and you are at the corridor intersection and the large, continuous, main staircase. You have the left wing corridor, the back annex corridor, and the right wing corridor.

The annex corridor leads to the infirmary, passing windows on the left and right.

I have the right and left corridors confused here.  There is a bathroom with a wonderful tile floor, the pharmacy with its crackled paint doors, a bed and a window peeking through to the exterior of the building near the fire escape. The staff dining room has a grand, old fireplace. The massive beams are shored up with metal piping that can be tightened together with your classic turn buckle. Next to that room is the dumb waiter and a Winchester type stairway to the basement kitchen. Next to that, I believe are one of the many narrow stairs to the second floor, some of which are roped off and unsafe. I do not remember what was in the round room at the far right of the building.

2nd floor: (see map) Climbing the main staircase, you are again at the corridor intersection. The left corridor is completely blocked off.

The annex corridor leads to a large, two story dorm room I called the dark dorm. The roof lumber and joists are ancient and dark, gloomy, covered in owl droppings and names carved by the boys over the years. What a feat that must have been, to climb those rafters! There is a wide staircase leading both up to the third floor and down to the first floor.

Down the right wing hallway you come to the library on the right. This is the right round tower in the center section of the castle. You enter into a short hallway with small rooms (closets?) on either side, then into the room, arched wall full of windows in front of you, gorgeous mahogany pocket doors to the right leading to a closed off school room. Our tour guide had informed us he felt a distinct warm spot there, in that short hallway. Highly uncomfortable room. Continuing down the corridor are private apartments. The first is said to be Anna's. Decaying floral fabric still covers the transom. A little bath, space for a bed, dresser and a chair or two and you can call it home. The next one has no floor or ceiling. Very uncomfy to see that. Ooops!!

There is a bathroom on the left end of the hallway, right next to another stairway leading to the third floor. At the very end of the hallway is the round room at the far right end of the castle, complete with a fireplace and a first hand view of the devastation of the upper floors. My general contractor David shuddered to think of what it would take to shore this area up, let alone, rebuild it.

Twelve apartments and a few bathrooms complete this floor, along with the usual spooky staircases that lead to the next, forbidden level. What I would have given to have had the courage to climb that stairwell and just peek into the third floor. I understand while there is room for the fourth floor, its flooring is gone. Eleanor has a lovely picture of this area here.

Basement: (See map) You can hop down to the basement using the main staircase or the cool little Winchester stairway from the staff dining room.

The annex corridor, I just can't remember where that goes, except snacks were served there and you can exit to the back patio, garden, Visitor's center and guard tower. The two wash fountains were there?

The right wing passes the baths and the shower room on the right, and the plunge. This is a swimming pool reportedly used to douse the boys for lice. One of the hunters with us told us she saw a man walk across that pool on her last visit, and it wasn't Jesus, nor was the pool full of water. On the left is a partitioned off furnace room and the kitchen and its tiny pantry. This is where the housekeeper, Anna Corbin met her fate in 1950. The sign says she was found in 1950 in the pantry, bludgeoned to death. Rumors say she was found stuffed into the corner of the pantry under the stairwell, but the location of the 'pantry' varies . A door leads back to the Winchester stairway up to the staff dining room. The round room at the very end has a pinkish beige sink in it.

The left wing hallway leads to the 'play room', another set of stairs, and another lift. Pillars line the rooms. This is where the tour guide told us that when those in control beat the boys, they left their jeans on in order to absorb the blood. (The guide chose that spot to tell the story, I don't know where the beatings actually occurred.) Here is the original dorm room, and a small room where the boy would be fitted for new clothes, then released by opening the back door and saying, "Goodbye!"

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