Pontiac, Michigan (January 12, 2006) The Office of Arts, Culture & Film presents a lecture by Bruce Annett, Jr., Executive Director of Marketing and Public Affairs at Lawrence Technological University and a former Director of the Oakland County Pioneer and Historical Society on January 19, 2006, from noon to 1:00 p.m. in the Oakland County Lecture Hall.

Bruce Annett, Jr. will be discussing the history of the former Clinton Valley Center, the large state hospital that operated for nearly 125 years just south of the county government complex. A generation before Oakland County became synonymous with automobile manufacturing, a large state hospital would begin to transform the area form its rural roots. What resulted was a city within a city, imbued with the optimism and exuberance of an America celebrating its centennial. The hospital became one of Oaklands earliest economic engines through enterprise, stewardship, and innovation. Beyond its buildings, the early hospital was a catalyst for a remarkable confluence of individuals who played significant historic roles in several fields.

The lecture will recount the original 1870s construction and opening of what was most recently known as the Clinton Valley Center. It will also highlight the hospitals 122-year presence in the city, and ultimately, its decline and eventual destruction. Listing on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Michigan historic site is no guarantor of survival.  Annett is the author of Asylum: Pontiacs Grand Monument from the Gilded Age. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase at the presentation for $26.45.

The presentation will take place on Thursday, January 19, 2006, from Noon to 1:00 p.m. in the Oakland County Lecture Hall, Building 49 West on the County campus at 1200 N. Telegraph Road, in Pontiac. For further information contact Kristie Everett Zamora, Director of Arts, Culture & Film.