Exterior view of the Coldwater School in Coldwater, Michigan with schoolchildren and teachers. The first state funded public school for dependent children was located in Coldwater, Mich. It was the only school that was established and maintained by a state that admitted children between the ages of three and fourteen that were of sound mind and free from chronic infectious disease. It opened on May 21st, 1874 and within a year was home to 275 orphaned children. Recorded in lantern slide ledger: "B/(D)-School-Coldwater school."
