South Facade, Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building, Minnesota

Kirkbride-designed asylum building with tower on grassy campus in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Kirkbride-designed asylum building with tower on grassy campus in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

The Kirkbride Building at the former Fergus Falls State Hospital was designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell and constructed in stages between 1888 and 1902. It follows the Kirkbride Plan, a 19th-century model for asylum design developed by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride, which arranged wards in a stepped, wing-like layout to give patients access to light and air. The building's sandstone and brick construction runs roughly a quarter mile end to end, making it one of the largest structures built under this design in the country. The hospital operated under state ownership until it closed in the 1990s, and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Photo taken in June 2014.

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