Minnesota’s Third Asylum

Fergus Falls State Hospital looks like a lens from the sky… it’s an appropriate form for a third-of-a-mile-long building constructed to focus the powers of 19th century medicine and the state, The State of Minnesota.

At ground level I pressed my nose against the car’s passenger-side window; I was a little boy mesmerized by the castle that rose from the hill, behind the trees. Reflections of red towers, white-arched wings and a thousand glittering windows traced their ghosts across the side of the car. Like a castle this was a place of power, but unlike its European cousins,this was a monument to, and an instrument of, a government for and by the people.

But especially for, if you know what I mean.

The convex architecture with an ornate and celebrated exterior harnessed the power of psychological, bureaucratic and physical structures for one purpose: to change people.

Days Spent Staring Through Curtains

This imposing, impressive and expressive building was not some benevolently feudal vestige of battle, like the castles the hospital recalls; the shiny and well-worn hallways reflect a different sort of war, one where the attacker was often unclear.

Wars of the mind, waged between walls of this asylum.

This ornamental stair is cast iron and used to connect all floors of the Administration building. Now it connects the first and second floor, then the third and fourth floors, with a strange cinder block and drywall barrier separating the new and old sections of the building. Note the insulation on the floor to seal heat into the lower floors that were used as offices until the hospital closed. On the corners of the staircase are lions, on the corners of the suspended section of stair are down-hanging pineapples. Set in the stairs themselves are shield motifs with slate tops.

In this section of the Men’s Ward, sealed by brick from lower floors, the room doors had messages painted in their inside–some motivational, some not. I would be interested to hear if anyone knows the backstory of this section. Lighting is natural; it was just after sunset.

The basement of the asylum was a strange place. Take, this fireplace, for instance, in an otherwise barren room. Random cinderblock (left) has created a little room behind the fireplace. To round out the strangeness, a toilet was plumbed into the middle of the space. Note the stone foundations.

“Insane asylums are a cultural cliché,” I wish I could say, “another invention of Hollywood,” but this is not so. Behind the block glass (barred windows would be too obvious) and ornate carvings (a homely prison) are thousands of memories carved into hospital in so many ways. From the tiny hexagonal tiles lining the dusty isolation rooms to the curtains hanging from the ward ceilings, to say nothing of the dark and stuffy tunnels below…

…this was a place where people were sent and kept until logic waxed or life waned.

It’s the sort of place that feels like home, designed to be, in a way,  comforting forever. Count and name those little tiles, or lay on your back and watch the curtains flutter, as God whispered in your ear: “Just another day.”

Animals in the Pen

I am not sure which was noisier, daytime or nighttime, but I know the days were more busy, especially since the farm was being tended; for most of the life of the hospital it was almost completely self-sufficient. Patients, depending on the severity of their conditions, tended to the roughly 500 acres of farmland and livestock which included hundreds of cattle, a mess of hogs and a handful of horses.

The interior of one of the curved corridors that connect two wards. Note the original floor’s hand-laid tile pattern. Portra 160.

The nurse’s station on this floor, a ward still in its original design, featured a half-door where patients could get their medicine. Portra 160.

A circular common room in one of the original parts of the hospital. When the asylum was especially crowded, this would be filled with patient beds, too. It’s very strange that this floor was not tiled like the other common rooms. It makes me wonder if especially dangerous patients were kept in this ward; those who could not be trusted to not extract and sharpen the ceramic tiles. Portra 160.

In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.

Indeed, fresh air and ample sunlight was the chief prescription then, a feature architecturally integrated by Thomas Kirkbride, the psychologist who inspired the design of this hospital. Today such buildings are called those of “The Kirkbride Plan”, “Kirkbrides” to enthusiasts, and are often the focus of preservation efforts. It’s a kind of building that would not be erected today, especially by a state government, to say the least.

Fergus, or “Minnesota’s Third Hospital for the Insane,” as it was originally known, broke ground in 1888 in the shape of the Kirkbride-informed designs of Warren B. Dunnell. Its purpose was to house all those whose psychological conditions excluded them from interacting with the general population, which is a tragically-wide net that snatched many from what could have been nearly-normal lives.

Postcard, 1914, Photograph Collection, MNHS.org

1900s Nursing Students (Cindy Swanson)

First West Center Dorm, 1923, Photograph Collection, MNHS.org

Full Ward, 1900, Photograph Collection, MNHS.org

Nurse, 1900, Photograph Collection, MNHS.org

However, Minnesota’s other two asylums (‘Minnesota Hospital for the Insane’ in St. Peter and Rochester’s ‘Asylum for Inebriates’) were bursting with overpopulation, and medicine of the day dictated that the best solution was to sentence individuals (often literally) to massive inpatient mental treatment facilities.

On July 29th, 1890 the first two men were sentenced to the asylum, joined the next day by eighty transfers from St. Peter.

Admin, 1928, Photograph Collection, MNHS.org

Admin, 2005. This is the only good picture I took of the Administration Tower before a lightning strke ignited its roof. Now a metal cap keeps the water out of the most iconic building at the Kirkbride.

Drunks and Diseased: A Diorama of Diagnoses

IN the early days, common reasons for admission were: overwork, fright, loneliness, epilepsy, and typhoid fever. In those days, one had to be male and sentenced to stay at the hospital. It wasn’t until 1893 when the State Hospital accepted 125 women (also transferred from St. Peter), who were confined to their own section of the institution designed for them. In 1910, laws were changed to allow patients to voluntarily admit themselves.

When the work wound down, Fergus Falls State Hospital covered a giant campus with 22 wards, a psychopathic unit, a detention hospital, a contagious diseases hospital, dual tuberculosis clinics and even a special hospital for convalescents.

Pie was served weekly.

Population of the hospital fluctuated, but rarely trended downward; in 1894, 532 patients, in 1904 1,500 patients, in the 1920s, 1,700, and in 1937, 2,000 patients were behind the block glass.

In the northeast corner of the farthest field there’s a white cross and American flag, marking the asylum cemetery. Around that meek marker are more than 3,000 remains, only about thirty of which are marked today. Rather, visitors can tell where the rows are by the subtle divetts in the dirt, where collapsed coffins shape the flat farmland into tiny hills. The state still pays for the plot’s upkeep.

A Gradual Downsizing, then Aloneness

BY the 1970s, though, the original philosophy of warehousing, sunshine and fresh air had long faded, like the canary-yellow paint on the old ward walls. Now, instead of being shut into tiny rooms, troubled minds were given psychotherapeutic drugs and mainstreamed into smaller clinics. The State Hospital’s usefulness was fading, as reflected by the 1985 name change to Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center.

Under this moniker, the building served only about 100 patients, some psychotic, but most were simply chemically-dependent inpatients. As a drug rehab, much of the 900,000 square feet went unused. In 2008 the last patients left the arching wards and heavy wooden doors for more humble abodes at the same time the State of Minnesota appropriated more than $7,000,000 to demolish the aging hospital. Why wouldn’t they want to forget?

Modern proposals to repurpose the complex are failing to save Fergus Falls State Hospital while a lightning strike (and resulting fire) has failed to destroy it. So this Kirkbride rests on the brink, to be saved for the next generation as an architectural treasure and public resource or razed as a park and empty lot. Another Kirkbride, Dixmont State Hospital, was demolished in the early 2000s, and Walmart had plans to build on its footprint for some time–maybe that’s what Fergus Falls wants instead of this treasure.

I watch and wait, as do the memories lining the inside of every window in Fergus Falls State Hospital, where my great grandmother spent some years of her life while coping with depression.

A teeter totter sits in front of the Memorial Building.

This ornamental stair is cast iron and used to connect all floors of the Administration building. Now it connects the first and second floor, then the third and fourth floors, with a strange cinder block and drywall barrier separating the new and old sections of the building. Note the insulation on the floor to seal heat into the lower floors that were used as offices until the hospital closed. On the corners of the staircase are lions, on the corners of the suspended section of stair are down-hanging pineapples. Set in the stairs themselves are shield motifs with slate tops.

The curving corridors flanking the Administration Tower are especially ornate, though the prison-like door betrays the real purpose of the building.

Looking into the tunnel system from below the Women’s Ward. The tunnels were used mostly by staff to move food and laundry.

To get more light into the wards, the building was narrow and had angular rooms, often staff space, perpendicular to the main hallway.

The top floor of the apartment seemed so empty without the furniture that once adorned it. Instead, my eyes were drawn to the worn paths in the floor between the rooms.

Connecting the Administration building’s tower and top floors is this beautiful cast iron staircase. It was probably designed to help service the clock originally planned to be set in the tower, but when the hospital went over budget the state cancelled the timepiece. Now we are left with a gorgeous stair with little or no real purpose–not that I’m complaining. I am a long-admitted spiral staircase fetishist.

Small rooms in the basement of the asylum were seemingly too tiny to be used, even for storage.

Some of the internal staircases were fitted with cages that wound round down the stairs to deter suicidal patients from taking a dive.

Some parts of the doctor’s apartment in the Administration Tower were decidedly upscale. Look at the beautiful ironwork on that sink!

Watching the comings and goings of doctors, nurses and new patients was a mainstay of asylum routine; one can find it easy to imagine pale faces pressed against the block glass windows, staring out at the world moving past them.

Iron lions in the doctor’s apartment guard the way to the dining room.

We mark our world in unexpected ways… this is how patient possessions would be stored during their stay in the old asylum wards. It’s about the size of a shoebox, and this particular drawer has a name where the others do not. Its place reminded me of the hospital cemetery where more than 3,000 are buried and less than 1% of whom are recorded by stone or plaque in their resting place.

The snowflake (?) patterns were hand-laid throughout the hospital. It is possible some or all of these tiles were laid by patients, as it is on record that they were used for simple tasks in the name of occupational therapy.

Looking across the spired rooftop of the Kirkbride building. In the foreground is a fire chute that contains a metal spiral slide designed to evacuate patients in case of a fire. Note the ironwork on the chimney.

The tunnels were full of bricked-up doorways. I wonder how many rooms under there are totally sealed from the outside world…

A typical shower in the old section of the hospital. It looks a little horrifying in the harsh light of a camera flash on the thousands of little white tiles. One soap holder hadn’t been stolen yet.

These long curved corridors connected the wards. Locked doors on both of their ends were a security and comfort feature. Sounds and people would be sealed in their respective wards, as the hallways would act like beautiful airlocks; they were so long that it was unlikely that doors would be open on both sides at the same time. Portra 160.

This ward was the last occupied place in the hospital. It was used as a chemical dependency (drug and alcohol) inpatient program. It seems that they were allowed to paint the walls before they abandoned it… I go back and forth, thinking it is a shame and thinking it is a little cool.

A bleak double room in what used to be the Receiving Hospital, built apart from the Kirkbride to observe incoming patients before they were placed in a ward.

An observation room, possibly for children, has drapes around a 2-way mirror. You know, to dress up the fact that someone could be watching anonymously on the other side.

The laundry building, where many of the tunnels came to an end. It looks very East Coast industrial to me.

Two windows above the slate Grand Staircase reflect let a little blue sky skip off the black.

Found in one of the rooms that hosted an inpatient chemical dependency unit in its later years. Connect the dots yourself.

On the top floor of one of the old wards, the slanted roofline makes the this group room more claustrophobic. Portra 160.

This old ward, not a victim of remodeling, still has metal screens over the open windows of the doors. It should be obvious why glass were not used.

Looking into a common from the grounds. The block glass makes the interior seem dreamlike and distorted. Note the poor condition of the bricks around the window.

Some of the doors had sliding plastic windows, but most of the older ward doors simply had these peep holes drilled through them. The inside was always marked and worn more than the outside.

One of the most beautiful exterior features of the hospital are these turret vents, highly stylized and beautiful to behold.

The hospital featured a farm that once helped to sustain it. This is one of the few remaining signs of those years, near the Nurse’s Cottage.

The newer tunnels were fitted with these fluorescent lights, although some skylights (block glass embedded in skywalks) let in some natural light during the day.

The basement of the asylum was a strange place. Take, this fireplace, for instance, in an otherwise barren room. Random cinderblock (left) has created a little room behind the fireplace. To round out the strangeness, a toilet was plumbed into the middle of the space. Note the stone foundations.

A light-painted portrait of one of the few remaining carts that moved everything from fresh eggs to soiled laundry through the tunnels.

Connecting the Administration Building to the wards fanning out. Historical photos show cots lining this hallway when the hospital was severely overcrowded. Lit by lightning outside the grounds during a huge thunderstorm.

The now-demolished Industrial Building.

This is one of the modern nurse’s stations where the last inpatients lived in the mid-2000s. The windows are thick shatterproof plastic. I am unsure why the suspended ceiling is missing.

The hospital was surrounded by walking paths that crisscrossed the front green, as it was called. Part of Kirkbride’s plan was to have ample opportunities for exercise outdoors–fresh air, especially cold fresh air, was thought to have curative properties.

The cemetery for the old asylum is, sadly, largely unmarked. Only in recent years has there been a real effort to locate and identify the remains there.

The new dining room is still set up for the Twelve Step meetings that took place here a few years ago.

In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.

Lined concrete vats in the basement of the asylum for fermenting pickles, presumable because the brine-vinegar solution was too harsh in a time before stainless steel.

An old sign directed patients and visitors back to toward the central parts of the hospital.

Ava near the Memorial Building. The block glass embedded in the sidewalk here is actually a skylight for the tunnel below, which connects the Memorial Building to the steam and supply systems of the hospital.

Looking into one of the fire slides, designed to evacuate patients extremely quickly. In 1880, a fire completely destroyed the asylum at St. Peter, Minnesota, killing 30 patients.

A primitive intercom system connected the various wards to their respective nurse’s stations. They looked hand-made and likely originated, in part, in the FFSH carpentry shop. They were often placed high, like this one, to be out of patient reach.

The very top of the Administration Tower’s spiral staircase. There’s an old antenna of some kind there, as you can see.

A back-lit tree with the silhouette of a roof spire in the background.

Part of the Laundry Building with an ugly archway between rooms. Note that even this building had a nurse’s station with shatterproof windows. Laundry was done by supervised patients as part of their Occupational Therapy and the staff took no chances.

Glowing observation windows–and someone forgot to lock a patient’s door…

The floor of this first floor bathroom, Men’s Ward, was unlike any other I remember in the hospital. Hand-laid tile, but the pattern made it seem even older than the rest of the hospital. Portra 160.

A circular common room in one of the original parts of the hospital. When the asylum was especially crowded, this would be filled with patient beds, too. It’s very strange that this floor was not tiled like the other common rooms. It makes me wonder if especially dangerous patients were kept in this ward; those who could not be trusted to not extract and sharpen the ceramic tiles. Portra 160.

Fergus Falls State Hospital. Well, technically moonlight… but a with stars nonetheless! The orange glow from the left and in the rear of the building are exterior lights on associated–former State Hospital–buildings. All other light is from the full moon that evening.

An old nurse’s station (you can tell because of the half-door with table) with torn-up tiles. Notice through the curved doorway that even the ceiling has a curvature.

The building is winking.

The service window in the Administration Tower had seen some abuse, even if it wasn’t so old.

The old men’s ward is an example of what the hospital resembled before part of the complex was modernized. Small rooms, light switches outside the door, small observation windows set into heavy wood. If you ask me, though, the tile work across the floors is the most spectacular.

A scribbled note on a doorframe… lost details.

The steel awning and its elegant staircase are one of my favorite features near the old carpentry shop. The gymnasium-theater is in the background.

Tunnels interconnected all of the complex, carrying power, steam, laundry and food throughout the hospital. This is a typical causeway that would have been very busy when the hospital was operating. In some places, signs still point to defunct areas of the hospital.

The now-demolished Sanatorium, for patients of the asylum that contracted the disease.

Each fireplace in the Administration Tower had a different design, color scheme, and little features to make it unique. One thing held true, however: none of them looked decent next to the disgusting 1990s cubicle farm carpet.

Sliding curtains gave a little privacy to the residents of this room, which looked and felt more medicinal than most of the other multi-patient rooms.

The interior of one of the curved corridors that connect two wards. Note the original floor’s hand-laid tile pattern. Portra 160.

Admin, 2005. This is the only good picture I took of the Administration Tower before a lightning strke ignited its roof. Now a metal cap keeps the water out of the most iconic building at the Kirkbride.

In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.

Taken in the last few minutes of the day. You can tell by the way that the wall is deteriorating that the windows using to have an arched top!

The common rooms bulge out of the institutional geometry of the wards.

This tree caught my eye. Note the bench swing near it. Portra 160.

The Sun Rooms, or Common Rooms, reminded me of the Panopitcon turned inside-out.

Trees by the beautiful Nurse’s Cottage above and behind the Kirkbride. One side looks out over farmland while the other faces the back of the hospital grounds. As of 2014, the city is allowing artists to rent spaces inside.

There is no denying that the Fergus Falls asylum was a beautiful place, especially around sunset.

The nurse’s station on this floor, a ward still in its original design, featured a half-door where patients could get their medicine. Portra 160.

In this section of the Men’s Ward, sealed by brick from lower floors, the room doors had messages painted in their inside–some motivational, some not. I would be interested to hear if anyone knows the backstory of this section. Lighting is natural; it was just after sunset.

A cloud moves across the attic in front of the window. How? A photographer’s secret.