Pouring over the history of the Poorhouse

   If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you realize I love taking pictures. I always have – sometime I’ll prove it to you. Not today.

Old buildings are one of my favorite subjects to snap a shot of. And once I’ve captured those old buildings, I have to learn anything I can about them.

I can’t remember the first time I drove by this building, but I instantly thought it was fascinating.

As luck would have it, when I visited my friend in Minnesota back in January, she was renting an apartment in it. Crazy!

The building was once part of the Wabasha County Poor House complex. In operation from 1873 to the 1930s, the complex included a hospital, residence hall, and outbuildings. In 1982, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its local significance in social history. It remains one of the few intact examples of the 64 poorhouse facilities which were established in Minnesota between 1854 to 1926.

From Wikipedia:

In 1864 the Minnesota Legislature passed a law requiring each of the state's counties to provide a facility to care for their poor and aged residents. Wabasha County initially established its poor farm in 1867 on 160 acres in Hyde Park Township. However this quickly proved to be too isolated and large to manage efficiently, so the county secured 32 acres on the outskirts of Wabasha in 1873.

The main building on the property at that time was originally a barn that had been converted to a dance hall. Even though the owner had refitted the building at his own expense before selling it to the county for use as a poorhouse, it and the rest of the existing buildings were not adequate for their new use. These were gradually replaced with new, purpose-built structures, namely the hospital in 1879 and the residence hall in 1883. The latter building contained not only the residents' rooms but a kitchen, a dining room, and quarters for the superintendent.

Welfare largely remained the responsibility of county governments and social organizations until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when federal Social Security was introduced. Citizens in local government facilities were not fully eligible for the new benefits, however, so many residents moved out of the poorhouse network. Wabasha County responded by privatizing the poorhouse, leasing it out as a for-profit rest home so residents could remain and collect federal benefits.

The facility closed as a rest home in 1952. It stood vacant for four years, but from 1956 into the 1980s the main building housed a restaurant and residence.

And now, the two remaining buildings house a number of comfortable apartments.