The U.S. Army announced the pending closure of Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1890. The fort's mission—protecting railroad survey crews and homesteaders entering Dakota Territory—had been fulfilled. The railroad reached Montana in 1881, and North and South Dakota achieved statehood in 1889. Fort Abraham Lincoln gradually declined and was abandoned in 1894.
The original plan was to convert Fort Lincoln into the state's reform school. Morton County commissioner and area landowner Elijah Boley proposed another location. In 1895, he donated 40 acres for the institution and offered an additional 160 acres at $10 per acre. The deed was later canceled when friction arose and the former Fort Lincoln site was reconsidered. The North Dakota Legislature eventually approved the current location in 1901, and the facility admitted its first students on May 13, 1903.
The facility has since served as North Dakota's center for juvenile-justice administration and operations. It opened as the North Dakota State Reform School in 1903, became the North Dakota State Training School in January 1921, the North Dakota Industrial School in 1961, and the North Dakota Youth Correctional Center in 1995.
In 1938, the State Training School was the nation's only youth correctional center to offer high school classes and one of only four in the United States to house both boys and girls. Until 1947, it also served as an orphanage, particularly for children whose parents were incarcerated. Other children, typically orphaned through accidents or other misfortunes, were also placed there.
The campus includes four cottages, administration and education facilities, a gymnasium with an indoor swimming pool, a chapel, and a cafeteria. Converting one cottage into a secure facility for high-risk juvenile offenders allowed the campus to operate without a surrounding wall or fence.
