Maintenance Shop with Sawhorses, Fergus Falls Kirkbride Building

The Fergus Falls Kirkbride building, part of the former Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center, opened in 1890 and operated as a state hospital for the mentally ill under the Kirkbride Plan, a 19th-century model that emphasized therapeutic design and self-sufficient campus operations. That self-sufficiency required extensive support facilities, including maintenance and carpentry shops where staff built and repaired equipment used throughout the institution. The hospital campus, designed by architect Warren B. Dunnell, once housed over 1,500 patients at its peak and functioned as a nearly self-contained small city, with its own power plant, farm, and workshops. The facility closed in the 1990s, and portions of the Kirkbride building have sat vacant since, with maintenance areas like this one left largely untouched.