Sunlit Dayroom with Columns at Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building

The Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building, part of the former Fergus Falls State Hospital, was designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell and completed in phases beginning in 1890, following the Kirkbride Plan for staggered wings that maximized light and air circulation for patients. The hospital operated under Minnesota's Department of Public Welfare and served people with mental illness for over a century before closing in the early 2000s. Large communal rooms like this one were used for dayrooms and dining halls, spaces where patients gathered outside their individual quarters as part of the moral treatment philosophy the Kirkbride model was built around. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.