The Lost Legacy of ‘Western Tuskegee’: How a Thriving Black College Became a Prison

Standing in his front yard in 1983, Edwin “Train” Hughes stared across the street with tears in his eyes, telling a young Curtis Pitts about the prestigious Black college in Topeka where he had once played ball and later coached. 

With Hughes’ gaze fixed on the spot where he had cherished memories of Kansas Technical Institute, Pitts looked in the same direction but couldn’t see it.

“I’m trying to figure out which college he was talking about because all I could see was a prison,” Pitts recalls. 

That’s because the land and buildings that used to be home to Kansas Technical Institute are now home to the Topeka Correctional Facility, the only prison for women in the state.  

That conversation, which occurred 40 years ago, stuck with Pitts. Motivated by that conversation, Pitts is on a mission to resurrect the once great institution and have the land and building it used to occupy returned to the Black community.  

A Proud Beginning

Founded in 1895 by Black educators Edward Stephens and Lizzie Riddick, the Industrial and Educational Institute of Topeka started modestly as a kindergarten and sewing school in the Tennessee Town neighborhood, an area settled by Black Exodusters from Mississippi and Louisiana. Two years later the school moved to a two-story building on Kansas Avenue near 2nd Street.  

The school quickly gained prominence, earning support from Booker T. Washington himself, who joined its board of trustees in 1900.

“It was a ‘For Us, By Us’ project, meaning that the founders were African American and the buildings were built by the students,” says Donna Rae Pearson, historian and curator with the Kansas Historical Society. “Even though education in Kansas was integrated at the upper levels, it was still hard for Black folks to go to a place of higher learning.”

By 1903, the institute had acquired 105 acres east of Topeka. Following Washington’s model of self-reliance, students built the campus buildings with their own hands, creating structures so well-crafted that some still stand today. The school earned the nickname “Western Tuskegee” for its connection to Washington’s Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Growth & Success

“It created opportunity and created jobs and businesses,” says Pearson. “It was a key component in economic development for the Midwest because it was really one of the first Black colleges west of the Mississippi.” 

The school offered comprehensive programs in agriculture, nursing, printing, tailoring, carpentry, and theology. Students could work to pay their tuition, grow food on the campus farm, and learn trades that would sustain them after graduation. By 1925, enrollment had reached 203 students from 26 Kansas counties and nine other states, with pupils coming from as far as Los Angeles and Chicago.

As the decades progressed, the institute – renamed Kansas Vocational School and then finally Kansas Technical Institute (KTI) – expanded its offerings to include auto mechanics, barbering, chef training, cosmetology, and industrial drafting. Students participated in football, basketball, track, chorus, band, and ROTC, creating a vibrant campus culture.

An Abrupt End

As early as 1899, the state of Kansas began supporting the school financially, first with small donations, and then with progressively larger amounts. In 1919 the Kansas Legislature recognized the school as a regular state school for the education of Black students.  

Four years after the Brown vs Topeka BOE ruling, the state closed the school even though it was already integrated with White students, making up more than 25% of the enrollment.   

“The distressing thing is it was never intended to close. It was always supposed to be land geared for the betterment of African Americans, and somehow it got out of the hands of the community,” Pearson says. “After Brown happened, they were deemed, even though they weren’t segregated, they were not deemed integrated enough.”

In his resignation letter, KTI President Dr. G. Robert Cotton challenged the decision saying closing KTI was unjust: 

“I regret that there are some people in this state who are of the opinion that the color of my skin and the background of my racial origin causes this institution to be segregated, while on the other hand considering those of a lighter skin and of a different racial origin operating under parallel conditions as not operating a segregated institution,” Dr. Cotton wrote. 

By 1961, the state had transferred control of the school to the Dept. of Corrections and dispersed its resources to colleges throughout Kansas. Today, several original KTI buildings, constructed by Black students, are housed in Kansas’ only women’s prison.

A Community’s Loss

The closure of KTI marked a turning point for Black Topeka. 

“We saw a strict decline in Black business ownership and the educational level of African Americans in the Midwest following the closing of that institution,” Pitts says. 

Historian Pearson explains the broader impact on the Black community locally, saying that any time you lose a social institution that brings the community together, there’s a deep loss in tradition. 

She says the loss of KTI coincided with other blows to Black Topeka’s economic foundation.

“On the heels of the closing of that school, then urban renewal happens, and devastates the Black economic structure,” Pearson notes. “Much like what happened in Tulsa, they took out our version of the Black Wall Street in Topeka, and it never fully recovered.”

Fighting for Return

After decades of research, Pitts discovered a 1910 deed stipulating the land where KTI once stood must be “perpetually used exclusively and solely for the industrial and educational training and development of Negro youth.”

He has petitioned state lawmakers to honor this legal document and return the property to its original purpose. The deed also states that if the grounds can’t be used for educational purposes then the property should be returned to the area Black community. 

The precedent exists for the state to return the property. In more than one case, Kansas recently returned land to Native American tribes based on historical agreements.

“I can’t imagine them giving the land back and moving the women’s prison,” says Pearson. “But could the right group of people make it happen? We’ve seen crazier things.”

A New Vision

While awaiting a response from officials, Pitts is working to establish a new technical school in Topeka’s former Payless headquarters, focusing initially on urban farming programs.

“Our community has to do for itself what our ancestors did and provide a quality educational opportunity for the young people of all races, not just Black kids,” Pitts says. “We need to make sure as many of our citizens are getting learning opportunities as possible, job career opportunities and trades that will allow you to come from the welfare rolls to the tax rolls.”

He envisions an institution that could eventually grow into Kansas’ first contemporary HBCU, teaching trades while building cross-cultural understanding.

For now, the prison walls still stand where students once learned. But Pitts and others refuse to let KTI’s legacy remain behind bars, working to ensure its next chapter brings the same opportunities for advancement that made the original “Western Tuskegee” a beacon of Black achievement in Kansas.

“Curtis has started that conversation: We need to decide what we’re going to do about that,” said Pearson.