The Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center is a former hospital located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It was built in the Kirkbride Plan style and first opened to patients in 1890. Over the next century it operated as one of the state's main hospitals for the mentally ill and also worked with people with developmental disabilities and chemical dependency issues. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.The hospital closed in 2005. Various proposals have been made to repurpose the site and buildings since its closure.Background and designBy 1885, Minnesota's state institutions for people with mental illnesses were badly overcrowded. The State Board of Health declared in 1872 that the facilities at the St. Peter Hospital for the Insane were appalling and a disgrace to the state. Even after a second hospital was established in Rochester in 1877, conditions remained inadequate. In response, the state legislature commissioned the Third Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane in 1885. Since the existing hospitals were in southern Minnesota, the new hospital was to be north of the Twin Cities. Among the potential locations considered were Brainerd, Fergus Falls, Sauk Centre and Alexandria. On December 14, 1886, Fergus Falls was selected as the hospital site by a vote of 4-1. The name of the institution was changed accordingly to the Fergus Falls State Hospital.The hospital was designed on a model established by physician Thomas Kirkbride. Kirkbride believed that building design was an important part of patient treatment programs. The typical Kirkbride structure consisted of a central administrative structure in the middle, with long, straight wings that radiated from it. Patients lived in the wings, which were uniform, precise, and austere. The bare façade was supposed to bring discipline into patients' lives. Kirkbride asylums were designed to provide "moral treatment." That included exercise, farming, entertainment, and classes like reading and sewing. Activities like farming and sewing provided occupational therapy and useful goods, but patients complained that they felt like chores.
