1896 Sioux Quartzite Old City Hall, Now a Regional History Museum
113 South Hiawatha Avenue, Pipestone, MN 56164
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Modest admission supports the Pipestone County Historical Society.
Access
Limited Access
Three-story stone building with stairs; some areas may have limited access
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1896 · National Register of Historic Places (1976) · Wallace Dow design · Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Sioux quartzite · Original city offices, jail, fire department, and first public library
The Old City Hall in Pipestone, Minnesota was built in 1896 of locally quarried Sioux quartzite at a construction cost of approximately $8,000. The City of Pipestone retained regional architect Wallace Dow to design the building, and the resulting two-and-a-half-story structure with a bell tower and hip roof became the city's governmental and civic center until 1960. The construction used Sioux quartzite from the regional quarries that have defined Pipestone-area architecture since the late 19th century.
The original interior plan was unusually dense for a small-city public building. It housed the city offices, the city jail, the fire department's apparatus and quarters, Pipestone's first public library, and a large second-floor meeting hall used for community events. The City of Pipestone operated out of the building until 1960.
The Pipestone County Historical Society held its collections in the county courthouse until 1967, when the City of Pipestone deeded the Old City Hall to the historical society. The building has functioned as the Pipestone County Museum since that transfer. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Architecturally, it is identified as Richardsonian Romanesque - a style that became commercially significant across the Upper Midwest in the late 19th century.
Sources
The Pipestone County Museum's haunted reputation grows out of the building's long mixed civic use - the same structure once held the city offices, the jail, and the meeting hall, and three floors of overlapping civic activity left a layered atmosphere that visitors today often comment on.
The most frequently reported figure is a young blonde girl in a blue 19th-century dress with a white apron, glimpsed in upper-floor displays by visitors and staff on multiple occasions over the museum's operating decades. A second cluster of reports involves unexplained sounds from the upper floors and a sense of presence in the former courtroom and jail areas.
The museum treats the reports as part of the building's atmosphere rather than as a programmed attraction. The Pipestone County Historical Society's primary mission is preserving the documented regional history of southwestern Minnesota and the Pipestone-area Indigenous cultures, including the Indigenous quarries that give the county its name.
Tour the 1896 Sioux quartzite Old City Hall building, now the regional history museum for Pipestone County. The building's architecture and interpretive collection are themselves the primary attraction.
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