The House of Refuge was renamed to the Minnesota State Reform School in 1879, and it moved to Red Wing in 1890.

It was created as a reformatory for offenders between sixteen and thirty years old who were presumed salvageable from a life of crime.

[6] The first cell block, a four-story Romanesque Revival structure designed by J. Walter Stevens, was completed in 1889.

The building, five stories tall, is built of granite and has a flat roof with octagonal corner towers.

Historian Denis Gardner writes, "[The granite barrier] all but shouted to those on the outside to be good citizens or else.

During the first decades the prison was built, upon release, it was standard to issue you a horse, saddle, rifle, and a gold piece.