Mismatched Chairs Outside the Switchboard Room at Fergus Falls Kirkbride

The Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building, part of the former Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center, was designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell and completed in 1890 under the Kirkbride Plan, a 19th-century model for asylum design meant to promote patient recovery through light, ventilation, and orderly layout. The complex operated as a state mental hospital for over a century before closing in the early 2000s. A switchboard room, marked by a nameplate still visible near the doorway, once housed the manual telephone exchange used to route calls throughout the sprawling institution. Mismatched upholstered chairs remain arranged along the corridor, a holdover from the building's use as office and waiting space in its later institutional years.