An albumen carte-de-visite that documents the first building used by the Minnesota Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Faribault, Minnesota, photographed by A.F. Burnham of Faribault during the institution's occupancy of the structure between 1863 and 1868. An inscription across the face of the image reads "Minn. Inst. for Deaf & Dumb" with a date in the 1862 to 1867 range, and the assembled staff and students make this one of the earliest known documentary photographs of the institution. The school opened September 9, 1863, in a rented commercial building on the corner of Division and Central Avenue in Faribault, the former store of Major Fowler, and remained there until purpose-built facilities were completed.

The building is a substantial two-story wood-frame commercial structure with a covered ground-level porch spanning the full facade, an open second-floor balcony with a turned balustrade, two chimneys, and a cupola or tower element at the right end. Approximately a dozen women and girls in light dresses line the upper balcony, while a larger mixed group of men, women, and children stand along the ground level and in front of the building. A horse-drawn carriage with two seated occupants is positioned at center foreground.

The Minnesota Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb was founded in 1863 as the first state educational institution in Minnesota, opening with just eight students under superintendent Roswell H. Kinney. A department for the blind was added in 1866, and the institution eventually grew into what is now the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf, still operating on its Faribault campus.

The reverse bears the printed imprint of A.F. Burnham, Photographer, Faribault, Minn., with the notation Negatives Preserved. A pencil notation at the upper right reads CDV26-73.