The Red Wing State Training School is the second oldest correctional institution in the state, established as the House of Refuge by an act of the Legislature in 1866 (Laws of Minnesota 1866, chapter 7). When the school actually opened in St. Paul in 1868, it was renamed the State Reform School (Laws of Minn. 1868, chap. 15). Because of crowded conditions and the need for additional buildings, a committee was appointed in 1887 to suggest a new site for the school. A new school was completed in 1891 on a 450-acre site two miles east of Red Wing (Laws of Minn. 1889, chap. 258). It consisted of an administrative building, three cottages, one dormitory, a power house, workshop, and barn. In 1895, the name of the school was changed to the State Training School for Boys and Girls.
The school’s Board of Managers, consisting of four persons appointed by the governor, directed the school which provided education and training in an effort to reform delinquent boys (through age sixteen) and girls (through age fifteen). Boys were instructed in trades and exercised in military drills, and girls were taught sewing, cooking, laundering, and other general housework skills. The school had no religious affiliation but conducted religious and moral instruction through clergy of various denominations.
The majority of inmates during the first 30 years of the school's existence were homeless, neglected, and dependent children, mainly boys from the ages of nine to fourteen, and the school often served as a substitute foster home. Many were children of immigrants, and generally very poor. Stealing and unmanageable behavior were the most common reasons for commitment. Later laws stipulated that children be committed when convicted by the courts of a crime, except that of murder, which was punishable by imprisonment (Laws of Minn. 1895, chap. 153).
The school's Board of Managers, overseen by the Board of Corrections and Charities from 1883 to 1901, directed the institution until 1901 when the Board of Control was given financial and administrative jurisdiction over all state hospitals, asylums, and penal institutions, including the Training School (Laws of Minn. 1901, chap. 122).
In the early 1900s, the average length of time spent at the school by an inmate was about one year. Entering inmates ranged in age from eight to sixteen years, and remained at the school until they reached age twenty-one, or until discharged. In 1911, the girls at the school were transferred to the Minnesota Home School for Girls in Sauk Centre, and the school at Red Wing became an institution for delinquent boys only, renamed the Minnesota Training School for Boys.
From 1939 to 1947, the school came under the authority of the Public Institutions Division of the Department of Social Security (Laws of Minn. 1939, chap. 431). In 1947, the Youth Conservation Commission, created to centralize the youth corrections process in Minnesota, assumed jurisdiction over the school (Laws of Minn. 1947, chap. 595). In 1959, the commission and the school became part of the newly created Corrections Department, under its Youth Conservation Division (Laws of Minn. 1959, chap. 263).
The school resumed co-educational status briefly from 1973 to 1976 and was renamed the State Training School (Laws of Minn. 1973. chap. 68). In 1978, adult male offenders in minimum security were also housed at the facility and, in 1979, the name was changed to the Minnesota Correctional Facility—Red Wing (Laws of Minn. 1979, chap. 102, sec. 1). The facility is under direct management of a superintendent responsible to the Corrections Department.
(History adapted from the Minnesota Historical Society's Agency History Record for the "Minnesota State Training School for Boys").