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Blair, Ed. History of Johnson County, Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas: Standard Publishing Co., 1915. Page 109 State Institute for the Deaf The Olathe "Mirror," of June 15, 1864, has the following in regard to locating the State school for the deaf and dumb at Olathe, Kans.: "A meeting was held at the Christian church, Tuesday night, with W. A. Ocheltree, president, and J. E. Sutton, secretary, the object being to elect a committee to confer with the commissioners on the part of the State with reference to locating the deaf and dumb asylum. The following committee was selected: Evan Shriver, W. H. M. Fishback and J. T. Weaver. Mr. Shriver was chosen to receive donations for purchase of ground to be given to the State for the site of the asylum." This was the beginning of the work that brought to Olathe the State school for the deaf, or the institute as it is called locally. Perhaps few there, that night, realized how large this institution would grow in fifty years of Kansas Statehood or how many unfortunates would be blessed by the careful training given there. Olathe's efforts won and the school was brought here in 1866, from Baldwin, Kans., where for four or five years previous it had been struggling along illy supported, with an attendance of about a dozen pupils. It was definitely located here through the efforts of John T. Burris, one of the grand men that Olathe still prides herself in possessing, though he lives in California now.
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