I spent this week doing some further research on the remainder of the Sunland locations, and sorting through some of the copious documentation that I collected during my trip to Tallahassee last week. I went there for a day at the state library and archives before proceeding on to Marianna and then Lousiana. There are so many mistakes in our public records it is amazing. I found state-level annual reports pertinent to my topic with NO YEAR LISTED anywhere on the report! Very frustrating. In some cases the state librarian has penciled in "1970: ?", for example, to try to be helpful. I am not sure what some of our agency directors are thinking.

I have found out that the Arcadia Sunland has been transformed into on of several "Sunrise" centers. The Sunrise organization, according to their web site, has facilities in six states. It is one of the options that the state exercised for patient disposition when the Sunlands closed. I made several phone calls to Arcadia, including the local ARC organization, before I found a person in the DeSoto County School system who knew where the Sunland facility was. I had made the erroneous assumption that, it being a small town, pretty much everybody would know.

I will need to go back to Tallahassee soon to start digging into the financial records. One piece of good news: all of the Sunland photos in the archives can be published as long as the archive is credited. Also, I'll be able to access this via the web and just obtain jpeg files. Very convenient.