Curved Day Room with Peeling Green Paint at Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building

The Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building was completed in 1890 as the main structure of the Fergus Falls State Hospital, designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Its layout follows the Kirkbride Plan, developed by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride, which arranged patient wards in staggered wings to maximize light and ventilation. Curved sunrooms like this one, set at the ends of the radiating wings, served as day rooms where patients could gather away from the main corridors. The hospital operated until the mid-1990s and the building has stood vacant since, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.