On This Date in Minnesota History: January 25

January 25, 1904 – Fire this afternoon in Owatonna, believed to be due to a defective flue, damaged the administration or main building of the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children to the extent of $75,000. There was $50,000 insurance on the building.

State School at Owatonna Administration Building

There was no loss of life, nor was anyone hurt. The children in the building were removed on the first alarm and were comfortably housed in the cottages. Some of the 37 school employees lost their personal effects.

The blaze was discovered about 2 p.m. by Ray Naylor, a bookkeeper, as he was coming from one of the cottages, and he at once turned in an alarm. An attempt was made to fight the flames with the school fire apparatus, but owing to the elevated position of the building and a stiff northwest wind, the fire was soon beyond control. Added to this there was only one way of getting into the attic, where the fire started, and the firemen could not get enough streams of water in play to check the flames.

A view of the fire¹

In the south wing of the building were 15 babies, and these were quickly carried to a place of safety. Some of the employees made a dash into the building to save some of their personal belongings, but the smoke was so dense that they were driven back.

When the Owatonna fire department, which had been summoned on the first alarm, arrived the central portion of the structure was a mass of flames, but by hard work the south wing was saved with comparatively little damage, but the rest of the structure is practically ruined. The roof of the burned portion fell in and now all that remains is the walls, though they are probably so badly damaged that they will have to be torn down.

The school was established by a law enacted in 1885 and was opened in Dec. 1886. It is located on a farm of 240 acres adjoining the townsite of Owatonna on the west, and the buildings are situated on an eminence overlooking the town and the Straight River. The Institution comprises nine principal buildings, the central one of which was the administration building burned today. The older children are quartered in cottage surrounding the main building.

The administration building was one of the structures erected at the time the school was first established in 1886, and at the time it was burned contained the offices of the superintendent and other officials, a library, public reception room, assembly hall, children’s and employees’ dining rooms, sewing rooms, nursery apartments and the private rooms of some of the employees.


The principal buildings are the school, added in recent years, the hospital with its necessary quarantine building, the superintendent’s residence and five detached cottages that now furnish quarters for nearly all of the children. Besides these buildings there are the laundry and heating plant, barns, greenhouses, workshops, implement house and hennery.

The Saint Paul Globe; “State School at Owatonna Badly Damaged by Fire. Central Portion and North Wing of the Administration Building is Destroyed, With Loss of $75,000, Partly Covered by Insurance—Inmates Are All Removed Without Injury and Comfortably Housed in the Surrounding Cottages.”; Jan. 26, 1904; p. 3.

¹https://www.facebook.com/minnesota.state.public.school.orphanagemuseum/photos/a.10152202297650262.913748.467619155261/10156081477710262/?type=3&theater

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