Gladney Center for Adoption

Specialties

For more than 125 years Gladney has been a pioneer and leading voice for improving the lives of children, adoptive families and birth parents. With unwavering commitment, through good economic times and bad, we have focused on our mission and made a difference in the lives of birth parents, families and children here and around the world.

History

Established in 1887.

The history of the center can be traced back to 1887. Fort Worth was established in 1849 and became the center’s home. By 1886 the Texas and Pacific Railway was operating and at least four stockyards were in service close to the railroad lines. The trains brought migrants from the southeast and in 1887, the first «Orphan Train» from the northeast. The Orphan Train Movement transported roughly 200,000 children from the northeast throughout the Midwest and as far west as Texas.

Reverend IZT Morris, a Methodist circuit minister, began locating homes for children who had reached the end of the line in Fort Worth. He and his wife Isabella took in many children while trying to identify permanent homes for them among local residents and slowly began the Texas Children’s Home Society. It was formally chartered in 1896 and incorporated in 1904 as The Texas Children’s Home and Aid Society.