Clinic Sign Along a Sunlit Hallway at Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building

The Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center opened in 1890 as the Fergus Falls State Hospital, designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell in the Kirkbride plan pioneered by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride. The layout used staggered wings to give patient wards access to light and air, a design standard for American asylums built between the 1850s and 1890s. The facility operated under state ownership for over a century, serving patients with mental illness before shifting toward broader regional treatment services in the mid-20th century. Many of its original support spaces, including clinics and staff corridors, retained the building's institutional cinderblock construction and utilitarian finishes throughout decades of continued use. The hospital closed in 2005, and the property has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.