Anoka Asylum

Sidenote: Fergus Falls State Hospital

Sure, this blog is about the Anoka Asylum, also known as the Anoka State Hospital, but when one of the most beautiful Kirkbride Asylums in the state is in danger if demolition... I feel like a post about it is warranted.

The Fergus Falls State Hospital has the honor of being one of the two remaining Kirkbride buildings in Minnesota. The other, in St. Peter, is still occupied as a mental health facility. There was a third, in Rochester, that was demolished in the 1980's. I think the building in Fergus Falls is the most attractive of the three, I may be biased, but I'd go as far as to call it the most attractive in the nation. (Hey, if you don't believe me, click here!)

Of course, finding someone to purchase and restore a building like this is no small undertaking. Coming up with reuse options for 606,911 square feet of building isn't easy. Take a minute to let that sink in, 606,911 square feet. Some of the space has been renovated and is in great condition, some isn't. Many ideas have been proposed, all seem to fall through in the end at which point the demolition talks spark up again.

Iowa has done a wonderful job of restoring and reusing three of their Kirkbride buildings (Cherokee, Clarinda and Independence.) They are able to look past what these buildings were used for, and see what they can be used for. Minnesota should take notice.

So, if you have $1, a vision and a little ambition, the Fergus Falls State Hospital could be yours!

$1 Historic Fergus Falls State Hospital (Fergus Falls)
Date: 2010-08-30, 3:34PM CDT
Reply to: hous-duy7k-1927773759@craigslist.org

The City of Fergus Falls has the Kirkbride design State Hospital in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, available for sale. There are approximately 606,911 square feet of buildings, which are currently slated for demolition, and 36.66 acres of land. The sale price is required to be at fair market value, which according to the last appraisal, is $1.00. A plan for development and proof of private development capital is also required. The City of Fergus Falls will work with the chosen developer to obtain any available certifications, credits, and grants to supplement private investments.

The historic site is the last complete example of a campus design once represented by over forty buildings worldwide. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. Interestingly, it has been considered for a college, for several movies locations, for an entertainment complex, for a mixed residential/commercial use project, for a seminary, for a prison, for a residential ownership complex for returning snowbirds, for an emergency housing center for disaster response, and as a resort/hotel. It stimulates the imagination by its size, form and presentation.

Located in Otter Tail County, with its 1,000 lakes, the Kirkbride design Fergus Falls State Hospital is five minutes from everywhere in historic Fergus Falls, five minutes from the intersection of Interstate I-94 and Minnesota State Highway No. 210, 66 miles from the Fargo/Moorhead SMA and its international airport, 114 miles from the St. Cloud MSA, 176 miles from Minneapolis/St Paul MSA, 21 miles from Glendalough State Park and 25 miles from Maplewood State Park.

The Fergus Falls community is on the Otter Tail Byway, the Central Lakes Trail, and the Pine to Prairie Birding Trail (which connects to Manitoba’s Pine to Prairie Birding Trail). The buildings, showing their Renaissance and Gothic influence, visually dominate a hill and the community, with three landmark towers. The site is a park-like setting, neighbored on the west by Otter Tail Government Services, on the north by a future planned residential community, on the east by both a historic grouping of buildings planned for a business complex, and an existing Minnesota Veterans Home facility, and on the south by the majority of the City of Fergus Falls.

The City of Fergus Falls has some development funds that can be tasked to the redevelopment of the property, and would like to speak to any interested developer.

To facilitate such a discussion, please contact Gordon Hydukovich at (218) 332-5427 or gordon.hydukovich@ci.fergus-falls.mn.us by November 15, 2010.

http://brainerd.craigslist.org/reo/1927773759.html

Now, if you have read this post all the way to here you must be interested or want to know more, right? Why not join the Friends of the Kirkbride group on Facebook and let them know that you're behind their cause! They even offer tours, you can bet I will be doing that very soon.

Senior Care Community to be Built on Former State Asylum Land

The Anoka City Council has given the green light to the Volunteers of America to purchase 16 acres of land on the former Anoka Asylum grounds. The Volunteers of America plan to build a nursing home on the land between the current Workhouse and Grant Street. The second phase of the project will add assisted and independent living facilities to the property. This community will be called The Homestead of Anoka, with the first phase of construction  scheduled to begin in the Spring of 2011.

The City of Anoka agreed to sell the land to the Volunteers of America for four dollars per square foot. Since the majority of the property once belonged to the Anoka State Hospital, the city had to acquire the land from the state. The deal with the Volunteers of America required this land swap with Anoka County to assemble the nearly 16 acres needed to complete the project. Terms of the agreement include the completion of the required property exchange, along with an approved development agreement between the city and the Volunteers of America by the end of 2010.

“This is real money,” said Councilmember Jeff Weaver during Monday’s approval of the land deal. “To think that this property hasn’t been on the tax rolls since the late 1800s is just remarkable."¹

The project manager, Robert Van Slyke, expects to have a development plan to the council by September.

¹ Mandy Moran Froemming, "Anoka Council Gives Green Light to VOA Land Sale," Anoka County Union, August 4, 2010

Upcoming Improvements to the Auditorium

The Auditorium at the Anoka Asylum was built in 1917 for $85,000. When it was built, the Auditorium could seat 900 patients, was equipped with a state-of-the-art motion picture machine, a large stage and an excellent floor for dancing.

The basement consisted of dressing rooms, a lounge and a chapel. There was also room for a bowling alley.

Today, the Auditorium sits empty. However, the Anoka County Capital Improvement Plan for 2010-2011 shows that there are some improvements planned to ready the Auditorium for reuse. The scope of the project would include:

Window replacement
Heating and air conditioning replacement
Repair of interior water damage
Restoring basement to an office complex
Addition of a sound system
General repair, painting and cleanup
Fire alarm upgrade
Fire sprinklers
HDCP accessible elevator
Road repair and additional parking

The project justification states that the Auditorium could be used for a variety of purposes. The main floor consists of a stage, main floor and balcony. The acoustical properties of the building seem to be good, and the building could be used for training large groups from the county. At present, the county rents space if it has a training session that requires good acoustics for over 50 to 60 people.

The basement area of the building had been used by the State of Minnesota for offices. It is a large, open, well-lit area that could be used for future office space. The county could house almost as many staff in this area as they do in a singular building, such as Building #8.

It is anticipated that in two to three years the Human Services Division and other departments within the county will be in need of office space. They have no additional space in the Anoka County Human Service Center in Blaine.

According to the report, all correctional facilities are expected to have space for large-muscle exercise. In most facilities this relates to a gymnasium. The Department of Corrections has not made this a requirement at the workhouse (cottages 6 and 7) because they indicated that the inmates either work at their own jobs or on work crews and are not in need of such a space. Should the Department of Corrections require this of the county, the Auditorium space could easily be used both for training and large-muscle exercise.

Work is supposed to start on this project in the Fall of 2010 and continue until the Summer of 2011. I have seen requests for bids go out for other buildings at the old Asylum, but not for the Auditorium. Hopefully the current economic climate won't prevent the improvements from moving forward.

A Modern History of the Anoka Asylum

The Anoka Asylum became known as the Anoka State Hospital in 1937, in part due to changing social attitudes toward mental illness. The name was changed again in 1985 to the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center to encompass mental health treatment, as well as the new chemical dependency programs that begun in 1970.

In January of 1984 the Anoka State Hospital had an average daily occupancy of 98%. That was the highest occupancy rate of any state hospital in Minnesota's history up until that point. The hospital could also boast a 25% recidivism rate, compared to an average national rate of 40-60%. ¹

In 1983, 74% of mentally ill patients stayed at the Anoka State Hospital for less than a year. Retrospectively, the first patients admitted in 1900 were expected to spend the rest of their lives as residents of the Anoka Asylum.

¹ Anoka State Hospital: A Working Part of Anoka, Governor's Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities, 1984

The Farmstead

In the summer of 1900, the farmstead at the Anoka Asylum consisted of two barns, a few granaries, machine sheds and outbuildings. Eventually the farm was expanded and included 1,000 chickens, 200 turkeys, 200 hogs, 6 teams of horses and 100 Holstein cows. The cattle were well known at regional State Fairs as a prize dairy heard.

Vegetables from the farm were canned, and jams and jellies were preserved for use year-round. Homemade butter and ice cream were readily available to patients and staff.

Farm chores kept the patients busy and encouraged them to take pride in their work. The cottage housing plan gave patients a sense of family, and their work on the farm gave them a sense of community. It was thought that this would calm a troubled mind and make the patients more comfortable at their new home in Anoka.

Influenza Epidemic

The influenza epidemic of 1920 claimed the lives of about 150 patients at the Anoka Asylum. The patients families were contacted to claim their loved one's remains for burial. If the family was unable or unwilling to arrange for a burial at a cemetery of the family's choosing, the patient would be buried at the cemetery on the grounds of the Asylum.

This cemetery was recently improved and now includes a headstone with the patient's name along with the original marker which often only had a number that coincided with hospital records. 

About 400 patients were buried at this cemetery between 1901 and 1965.

The First Patients and First Building at the First State Asylum for the Insane

Insane Patients Transferred to the Asylum at Anoka

March 15, 1900
Dr. Tomlinson, superintendent of the state hospital for the insane, and three members of the hospital board were busy Tuesday selecting the patients to be removed from the St. Peter asylum to the new institution at Anoka. About 100 were chosen, all male patients who were adjudged hopelessly insane.

They came to St. Paul in two cars on the Omaha road and took the Great Northern for Anoka early in the morning. Three nurses from St. Peter, under the direction of three members of the board; Dr. Jones, Gaylord; W.W. Moore, Taylors Falls; Dr. A.W. Daniels, St. Peter. Upon arriving at Anoka they were transferred to buses procured by Superintendent Coleman, of the Anoka asylum, and taken to the hospital, about a half mile from the depot.

Minneapolis Tribune (1867-1908); Mar 15, 1900; pg. 3


These first 100 patients were housed in a 2.5 story Administration building which, at this time, consisted of a center section for administrative offices and a wing off the side to house the male patients.



The photo above was taken in 1937. As you can see, an additional wing was added in 1902 to the other side of the center section. Later known as the Burns building, this unit served as the state tuberculosis center for the mentally ill from 1950 until 1969. This building was razed in 1979.

Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. Photographer: Leo A. (Dinty) Moore  Negative no. 84583

The Hospital for the Insane at Anoka - First Plan

The serene group of cottages around a horseshoe shaped drive that we see today was not the first plan for the new asylum in Anoka. The original architect, Warren B. Dunnell, had a different vision for the site.

Dunnell, a Minneapolis-based architect, was probably best known as the architect of the Fergus Falls State Hospital, the State School for Dependent & Neglected Children in Owatonna and the Metropolitan Opera House in Grand Forks. His plans for the Hospital for the Insane at Anoka in 1897 followed a modified cottage plan which specified the buildings remain rather plain with a touch of modern gothic architecture.

According to a Minneapolis Tribune article from January 10, 1897, Dunnell took in to account, no doubt due to the devastating fire in which 18 patients were burned to death at the St. Peter State Hospital in 1880, the safety of the buildings and the patients in them. His design called for the buildings to be made of brick or stone and not more than two stories high. Dunnell's plans also proposed that the buildings be connected by a narrow one story corridor to make each cottage feel separate, but still facilitate moving patients and staff around the complex.

Originally, the asylum at Anoka was to be comprised of six main buildings, an administration building which would hold offices and a receiving ward, two cottages for male patients, one for female patients and two "intermediate wards" which would have been for special patients that required constant care and attention. On either side of this main group of buildings would have been two more cottages, one for men and one for women, which would house the chronic or incurably insane. The site would have also held buildings for meal preparation, laundry, store houses, a morgue, water tower and an amusement hall. These buildings were to be completely separate from the hospital buildings and connected by a tunnel system. Dunnell went as far as to propose another group of buildings to the north for patients with contagious diseases, a criminal ward as well as infirmary and convalescent wards. Along the river he proposed putting cottages for farm employees, stables and other farm buildings, and dormitories for nurses and assistants at the hospital.

Many groves of trees, the winding river and a lush meadow made this an idyllic setting for treating mental illness. Close proximity to Anoka and the railroad station meant easy access for employees and visitors. Three-hundred of the total 648 acres were ready to be planted with crops that would give patients a useful job and plenty of food.

For unknown reasons, Dunnell's plans for the Anoka Asylum were never used. Most of the buildings we see today were designed by Clarence H. Johnston, the state architect for the Board of Control.

Click the photo below to see Warren B. Dunnell's proposed sketch of the Hospital for the Insane at Anoka