In 1881, the Wisconsin Legislature began a system of county asylums in order to cope with overcrowding in state psychiatric facilities. Each of the county institutions was to be managed by the county but overseen by the newly created State Board of Supervision of Wisconsin Charitable, Reformatory and Penal Institutions (later the State Board of Control). The Legislature provided that, with its consent, any county could erect an asylum on land purchased for that purpose so long as plans and specifications met with the approval of the State Board. Each county asylum was governed by a board of three trustees selected by the county board of supervisors. These asylums housed all inmates from state institutions who were deemed to have chronic conditions, as well as all mentally ill inmates residing in local poor houses and others whom a county judged to be insane. Initially, each county asylum received $1.50 per week from the state for the subsistence of each patient.
The Dunn County Asylum for the Chronic Insane was one of the state system of county asylums. Its establishment in 1891 was recommended by a special committee appointed in 1889 by the Dunn County Board of Supervisors. Between 1889 and 1891, this committee conducted research and visited asylums in Dodge, Jefferson, Iowa, Dane, Outagamie, and Racine counties. Dunn County, the committee argued, stood to benefit greatly from its own institution as the county was supporting 49 patients in other county asylums and building its own facility would be more economical.
The Dunn County Asylum, which could accommodate over 100 inmates, was located two miles east of Menomonie in the town of Red Cedar, down the road from the already existing Dunn County House. Its first board of trustees included J. H. Stout, A. R. Hall, and William H. Smith. The asylum operated on an “open door” policy which meant that patients were unrestrained and allowed to move about the property. Institutional philosophy emphasized the value of work as therapy and the asylum employed patients in its substantial farming and dairying operations and in maintaining the household. The institution often produced more farm products than it could consume, and it regularly sold crops, milk, cream, and meat products to other institutions and individuals.
The Dunn County Poor House, situated on Bullard Hill in an older brick building adjacent to the asylum grounds, came under the same management as the Dunn County Asylum in 1892. It could accommodate approximately 25 inmates, most of whom were indigent elderly. This institution later became known as the Dunn County Home.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the Dunn County Asylum and Home had come under the supervision of the State Department of Public Welfare, and in 1947 the institution changed its name to the Dunn County Hospital and Home. This name change was intended to reflect transformations in state law which extended the services offered by the facility to include both the acute and chronic mentally ill and individuals with chemical addictions. In 1948, the Dunn County Home, which had begun to witness a decline in the number of residents during the Depression, became a private nursing home. The decline in patient numbers and the subsequent decision to lease the building were rooted in the establishment of a national old age pension system in the 1930s that allowed many of the former residents to live independently.
By the middle of the 1960s, the Dunn County Hospital needed additional beds and improvements in its old, decaying facility. In 1966, the Welfare Committee of the Dunn County Board embarked upon a three-year study of the problems facing the hospital. In 1969, the committee recommended that the board construct a new facility that would add 100 beds. In 1972 this facility, overseen by the State Department of Health and Social Services, was opened as the Dunn County Health Care Center. The new facility initially housed a nursing home on the first floor and a psychiatric unit on the second floor. It also had facilities for the treatment of alcoholism. In 1970, the main barn burned and dairy operations ceased. Other farming operations ended in 1978. The original asylum building was demolished in 1979.
