Yellow and Green Doors Along a Corridor at Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building

The Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building was designed under the Kirkbride Plan, a 19th-century model for asylum architecture developed by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride, which called for staggered wings to maximize light and ventilation for patients. Construction on the Fergus Falls State Hospital began in 1888 and continued in phases into the 1900s, with the building serving the Minnesota State Hospital system for the mentally ill for nearly a century. The facility closed in the early 2000s, and the Kirkbride building has sat vacant since, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Long corridors like this one connected patient wards, dayrooms, and staff areas throughout the structure's wings.