The nation's only orphanage museum on its original campus, where 10,635 children lived between 1886 and 1945 and 198 died — 151 originally buried by number only.
540 W Hills Circle, Owatonna, MN 55060
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Suggested donation of $2 per person. Free to enter; contributions support the museum.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Campus grounds with paved paths. Main museum accessible through City Hall building (weekdays) and Owatonna Arts Center entrance (weekends).
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1886 · Operated 1886–1945; housed 10,635 children · 198 children buried in on-campus cemetery, 151 originally marked only by number · Described as the only orphanage museum in the United States on its original campus · Campus listed on the National Register of Historic Places
In 1886, the state of Minnesota opened a residential institution on the southern outskirts of Owatonna for children who had been orphaned, abandoned, or removed from unfit homes. The Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children was designed to function as both a home and a training facility, with children assigned to cottage-style residential groups and expected to participate in farm labor and domestic work as part of their preparation for employment.
Over the institution's 59 years of operation — from 1886 to 1945 — a total of 10,635 children passed through its records. Many were placed in adoptive or foster homes; others aged out of the system; 198 died at the school and were buried on the grounds. For 151 of those children, the original grave markers carried only a number. Efforts to match numbers to names through institutional records have been ongoing since the campus was repurposed.
After the state school closed in 1945, the campus served as the Owatonna State School for children with developmental disabilities until 1970. A four-year vacancy followed before the city of Owatonna purchased the property to serve as the West Hills civic campus — now home to city offices, the Owatonna Arts Center, and the orphanage museum itself.
The museum is described by the institution and by Atlas Obscura as the only known orphanage museum in the United States housed on its original campus. Exhibits in the main building and the restored Cottage 11 document the children's experiences, the institution's methods, and the ongoing process of recovering names for the numbered graves.
Sources
Paranormal accounts attached to the Minnesota State Public School campus center on the Children's Cemetery and the institutional buildings. The figure most specifically named in lore is a child called 'Lily,' described in investigator accounts as an apparition appearing in the older sections of the campus. No documented burial at the cemetery has been definitively matched to this name in available sources, and the origin of the name appears to be investigator tradition rather than historical record.
Visitor and investigator reports also include disembodied voices — particularly voices described as sounding like children — in the corridor areas of the original campus buildings, and cold spots identified in specific rooms of Cottage 11 and the main exhibit hall. Paranormal Unknown documented these accounts in a published investigation summary that attributes the activity to the cumulative weight of child mortality on the grounds.
The concentration of childhood death — 198 deaths, many children dying far from their families of origin, 151 of them initially interred without their names on their markers — gives the site a historical gravity that underpins both the paranormal tradition and the museum's stated mission to recover those identities.
Notable Entities
Tour the museum housed in the original campus buildings of the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children, including exhibits on the 10,635 children who passed through between 1886 and 1945, restored Cottage 11, the Kids' Memorial, and the Children's Cemetery.
Visit the small cemetery in the southwest corner of the West Hills campus where 198 children who died at the state school are interred, 151 of them originally marked only by number. Grave markers have since been restored with names where records allow.
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