HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A 500-acre farm colony established in 1909 for the highest-functioning patients of Minnesota's eugenics-era institution, now abandoned and the subject of documented paranormal investigation
County Rd 30, Walcott Township, Faribault, MN 55021
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No admission charged; exterior viewing only from public road
Access
Limited Access
Rural agricultural land; unpaved access roads; not maintained for public walking access
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1909 · Minnesota Experimental School for Imbeciles (founded 1879) · Walcott Mills Colony Farm established 1909 on 507 acres · Center of Minnesota's eugenics sterilization program (active 1920s–1940s) · Statewide peak of 188 sterilizations in 1937 · Deinstitutionalization and abandonment of colony farm structures
The institution that became known as the Faribault State Hospital was established in 1879 as the Minnesota Experimental School for Imbeciles, making it one of the earliest state-run facilities for individuals with developmental disabilities in the upper Midwest. In 1909, the institution acquired 507 acres of farmland in Walcott Township to create the Walcott Mills Colony Farm, designed to house and employ patients deemed capable of agricultural work under the colony model then popular in American institutional psychiatry.
Faribault became a central site of Minnesota's eugenics sterilization program, which operated under the state's 1925 statute. According to reporting by MinnPost and MNopedia, Minnesota sterilized more than 2,000 people under this program, with Faribault accounting for a significant portion. The program peaked statewide in 1937 with 188 surgeries recorded that year. The procedures targeted residents of state institutions deemed to have intellectual disabilities or mental illness.
The facility operated under various names — including Faribault Regional Center beginning in 1985 — before Minnesota Corrections took over the main campus grounds in 1987. The Walcott Mills Colony Farm structures were largely abandoned as the facility's population declined through deinstitutionalization. The 507-acre colony property retains dormitory-era buildings that paranormal investigators have documented as an active location for unexplained phenomena. No formal cemetery has been confirmed publicly, though accounts reference unmarked graves on the former colony grounds.
Sources
The abandoned structures of the Walcott Mills Colony Farm have drawn paranormal investigators drawn by the site's documented history of institutionalized suffering. Local press coverage, including a video from Quick Country radio, documents teams conducting investigations inside the abandoned buildings and reporting visual and auditory phenomena including apparitions, light anomalies described as orbs, and sounds described as screaming.
Investigators and local accounts have cited the possibility of unmarked patient graves on the former colony farm grounds, a pattern documented at similar early-twentieth-century institutional sites where mortality was high and record-keeping of deaths often incomplete. No official survey of the property for human remains has been publicly confirmed.
The combination of the eugenics program's history — which involved non-consensual sterilization of more than 2,000 Minnesotans — and the site's long abandonment has made Walcott Mills one of the more historically weighted paranormal sites in the region. Access to the structures is not publicly authorized.
The former colony farm grounds are visible from County Rd 30. Abandoned dormitory-era structures remain on the property. The surrounding landscape retains the scale of the original 507-acre agricultural operation. Access is exterior only from public roads.
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