In 1985, the hospital's name was changed to the Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center to reflect its new mission. After 1970, the institution began accepting patients with developmental disabilities and chemical dependencies as well because they lived in Northwestern or West Central Minnesota. Since its founding, the Fergus Falls institution had primarily served people with mental illnesses. That meant that it served patients based on where they lived, rather than what services they needed. The Fergus Falls State Hospital became Minnesota's first multi-purpose regional center. Most patients were poor and had few resources in times of trouble.Īfter World War II, drug therapy led to better outpatient care, and the entire Minnesota hospital system was scaled back. Still, the court system treated the hospital as simply a convenient way to isolate social outcasts. Over the course of the twentieth century, hospital leaders were on forefront of treatments like occupational therapy and shock treatment. Patients could be admitted voluntarily but many were sent by court order. The Fergus Falls State Hospital quickly became overcrowded, even though it had been intended to solve overcrowding problems. The population in Fergus Falls more than doubled between 18. As the institution grew, so did the town. Women were not admitted to the institution until 1893, when 125 women were transferred from St. The first patients were all men, and most of them were farmers or laborers. The next day, it received 80 more patients from the St. When the hospital opened its doors, it received two men from the Judge Probate of Otter Tail County. The other wings and the main building were finished by 1912. It opened in 1890, but only the West Detached Ward was finished in time for the hospital's opening. Dunnell, the Fergus Falls State Hospital was one of the last Kirkbride structures built in the United States. Activities like farming and sewing provided occupational therapy and useful goods, but patients complained that they felt like chores.ĭesigned by architect Warren B. Kirkbride asylums were designed to provide 'moral treatment.' That included exercise, farming, entertainment, and classes like reading and sewing. The bare façade was supposed to bring discipline into patients' lives. Patients lived in the wings, which were uniform, precise, and austere. The typical Kirkbride structure consisted of a central administrative structure in the middle, with long, straight wings that radiated from it. Kirkbride believed that building design was an important part of patient treatment programs. The Fergus Falls State Hospital was designed on a model established by physician Thomas Kirkbride. Fergus Falls was soon chosen as the hospital site, and the name of the institution was changed to the Fergus Falls State Hospital. Since the existing hospitals were in southern Minnesota, the new hospital was to be north of the Twin Cities. In response, in 1885, the state legislature commissioned the Third Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane. Even after a second hospital was established in Rochester in 1877, conditions remained inadequate. Peter Hospital for the Insane were appalling and a disgrace to the state. The State Board of Health declared in 1872 that the facilities at the St. The hospital had a sprawling campus and large stately buildings, built according to the influential asylum plan developed by Philadelphia physician Thomas Kirkbride in the 1850s.īy 1885, Minnesota's state institutions for people with mental illnesses were badly overcrowded. When the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened its doors on July 29, 1890, it became the first state institution in northern Minnesota for patients considered insane.

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