The State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children operated from 1886 to 1945 as a state orphanage where 10,635 orphaned, dependent, and neglected children were placed during its 60-year history. By the 1920s it was the third largest orphanage in the nation, and during the Depression of the 1930s it housed 500 children. Children entered as wards of the state, ranging in age from babies to 18, and the institution's mission was to provide an interim home before placing them for adoption. Because adoption rates were low, many children were placed on indenture contracts until age 18 instead. Some found good homes, while others suffered difficult and humiliating experiences, and although the intent was not to institutionalize children, many spent their entire childhood there. Siblings who entered together could later be separated by indenture or adoption, and many were never reunited. By 1945, state legislators concluded that such children were better served by immediate placement in foster homes. For the next 25 years, the school provided academic and vocational programs for the educable mentally disabled. After standing empty for 4 years, the City of Owatonna purchased the campus area in 1974 from the state and renamed it West Hills. The thirteen original buildings now house city administration offices and other related city facilities, the farmland became the city's industrial park, and a local realtor purchased the remaining property on State Avenue.