Vacant School Building in Berlin WI
Berlin High School, Berlin Wisconsin

The original portion of the building was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Parkinson & Dockendorff of La Crosse, a firm well known throughout the state for school design. Completed in 1918, the original building was designed in the firm's favored Collegiate Gothic style. Over time, the building was expanded, reflecting changes in educational needs and the growth of the community. The additions included a (formerly) free-standing shop building and a gymnasium addition, both designed by Robert W. Surplice of Green Bay and completed in 1947 and 1955 respectively; and a 1986 classroom addition by the Platteville-based engineering firm of Southwest Engineering Inc.
Opened in the fall of 1918, the original portion of the existing school building was the third high school building to be built at this site. Both earlier buildings, completed in 1869 and 1902 respectively, were destroyed by fire, the latter in 1916. The present Berlin High School was designed by Parkinson & Dockendorff, the contractor was A.J. Kramp, and the building was completed at a cost of $120,000.
The earliest part of the building was dedicated on May 13th, 1918 with an open house and a program that included music by the high school chorus and a teacher's quartet and remarks delivered by Governor Emanuel L. Phillip, Berlin Mayor C.W. Hitchcock, and various school officials. The program was held in the building's auditorium, which was reportedly filled to capacity, with additional crowds waiting in the halls outside. An estimated 800 attendees were present and included residents of Berlin as well as those who traveled from the surrounding area. The building and dedication program was described the following day in the Berlin Evening Journal. Local pride in the building is summed up in the paper's reporting that "There is no better school building anywhere in the state and few can compare with it."
Berlin High School was designed to offer the most modern school amenities. The basement housed spaces for gender-specific activities. The east end of the basement originally had a girl's locker room, domestic science kitchen and dining room, and sewing room, all separated by mechanical spaces from the basement's west end boy's locker room, mechanical drawing and finishing rooms, and a manual training room with a space for lumber storage. The remainder of the basement was occupied by a large two-story gymnasium with an upper level balcony. At the first floor were six classrooms, toilet rooms and cloak rooms. The second floor contained a large assembly room above the gymnasium, with the rest of the floor used for administrative offices, a library, additional toilet rooms, and classrooms originally dedicated to instruction in typewriting, business, recitation, and chemistry. Interior finishes were of high quality and included terrazzo floors in circulation spaces, maple flooring in classrooms, plaster wall and ceiling finishes, with marble wainscoting in the corridors and oak trim throughout.
A free-standing, brick, shop building was built on the site in 1947 to increase manual training facilities. Measuring approximately 60' by 100' the building was located northeast of the main school building. Designed by Green Bay-based architect Robert W. Surplice, this one-story building contained a metal shop, drafting studio, wood shop, paint room, and a small teacher's room.
As in many Wisconsin communities in the 1950s, mid-century economic growth boosted a need in Berlin for expanded high school facilities to serve growing numbers of students. By 1953, Berlin High School reached a record enrollment of 542 students, an increase of 47 students over the previous year's enrollment. In the early 1950s, an addition to the high school was planned to accommodate this increasing enrollment. The addition was reportedly designed to meet future enrollment needs of up to 750 students. Berlin High School's 1950s expansion reflected the increasingly diverse curriculum of Wisconsin's public high schools and the need for additional specialized spaces to accommodate developing classroom and physical education programs.
The Berlin High School's 1950s addition was again designed by architect Robert W. Surplice, a prolific designer of schools and churches throughout the region who earlier design the school's 1947 shop addition. The addition was begun in the spring of 1954 and dedicated December 4th, 1955. Completed at a cost of $400,000, the addition extended back from the original building, and included a new gymnasium with a seating capacity of 2,000, a library, six new classrooms, and offices for the city superintendent and school officials. The addition also connected the previously free-standing shop building to the main building. Improvements to the shop building included the addition of a drafting room, a storage space for wood, and an adjacent classroom. The basement of the new addition opened directly on to the athletic field and was used to store sports equipment and janitorial supplies. An estimated 500 residents of Berlin and the surrounding area attended the building dedication and the new addition was reportedly a source of pride for Berlin residents.
The Berlin High School was expanded again with a north wing completed in 1986. Designed by Southwest Engineering Inc. of Platteville, the two-story addition included approximately 25,190 square feet of new space that included general classrooms, rooms for vocal and band instruction and practice, home economics kitchen and sewing areas, a television classroom, and a publications room.
In 1996, a new high school was constructed approximately a mile north, at 222 Memorial Drive. The subject building was renovated in the summer of that year and was converted for use as the Berlin Middle School. A new middle school was built in 2016, and the building was vacated.
History of Berlin, Wisconsin
The City of Berlin is located at the narrowest point of the channel of the upper Fox River for several miles in either direction. For this reason, the site was chosen in January 1846 as the crossing point for a road being surveyed to connect the city of Fond du Lac, located on Lake Winnebago, and the village of Plover, located on the Wisconsin River. This siting adjacent to water and land transportation would be important to the development of Berlin. Nathan H. Strong, Hugh G. Martin, Hiram Barnes, and William Dickey, the road surveyors who first saw the site on the Fox River, claimed the land and established the first settlement. Nathan Strong built on his claim in 1847 and platted "Strongsville" in 1848. The settlement grew rapidly, with a population of 250 by 1850 and the following year, the village voted to rename itself Berlin. In 1857, a railroad link was built through Berlin, which assured the city's growth as water transport became obsolete. By the 1860s, Berlin had become a thriving commercial center, attracting business pertaining to the agricultural, wholesale, and retail trades. It was only in the late nineteenth century that significant industrial development occurred in Berlin, which included flouring mills, tanneries, saw mills, foundries, and other manufacturing necessary for any growing city. The early twentieth century saw a continued expansion in Berlin's local economy and population.
Education in Berlin and the Development of the Modern Educational System
The design and construction of the Berlin High School exemplified a statewide trend in the expansion and specialization of educational facilities during the early twentieth century. In the late nineteenth century, most community schools combined primary and secondary grades into a single building. By the turn of the century however, there was a growing recognition that younger children and older children had distinctly different educational and developmental needs that could be best served through separate, specialized facilities. The push for secondary education led first to a proliferation of separate public high schools. The Free High School Law, which provided state aid to fund public high schools in Wisconsin, was passed in 1875, and by 1923 over 400 school districts operated high schools. Junior high schools also gained favor in the early twentieth century, particularly in larger urban areas, as a way to bridge the gap between primary and secondary education.
The twentieth-century education reform movement ushered in the era of the modern school building. Beginning in the early 1900s, the State of Wisconsin began to actively encourage communities to replace their older primary schools with modern "state graded" schools. The term graded school was generally used to refer to any school that had more than one room and therefore contained more than one grade of pupil. A 1901 act of the state legislature provided special funding for the construction of new graded schools, and a second act passed in 1905 required schools with more than 65 pupils to provide at least two rooms and two teachers. These legislative acts thus had a direct impact on the form and design of schools across the state. As noted in Cultural Resource Management in Wisconsin, "the state even provided sample plans to guide districts in their remodeling projects."
In marked contrast to the single-room schoolhouse, these schools were large, solidly built buildings, typically architect-designed of fireproof construction with modern amenities such as central heating, electricity, and indoor plumbing. Spacious classrooms were well-lit and ventilated with large windows. The interior reflected the programming needs of the students it was built to serve, with secondary schools generally featuring more specialized spaces to accommodate a diverse curriculum. Primary schools typically featured a kindergarten space and some type of open assembly space that could serve multiple functions.
Prior to 1848, schools in Wisconsin were, with few exceptions, elementary schools, usually one room, with a single teacher who taught children aged five to eighteen. Students were not graded, and the coursework was limited to reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and arithmetic. Individual schools taught by graduates of Eastern colleges may have included Latin or algebra for some students, but the practice of recitation required by the other subjects left inadequate time to devote to advanced subjects.
In the period following Wisconsin achieving statehood, educators primarily focused on establishing a state system of primary education and a state university. While educators recognized the need for college-bound students to receive additional education beyond that offered in elementary schools, emphasis, it was not considered an urgent matter. The first institutions in Wisconsin to offer advanced education beyond elementary school were known as "academies." The earliest examples of academy schools were privately funded and varied widely in their organizational structure. Coursework emphasized mathematics, modern languages, literature, and modern history.
The first free public high school in Wisconsin was established in Kenosha in 1849, and this example was followed by other cities in Wisconsin. In 1865, Berlin's local high school was so popular that citizens boasted that they did not need to "send [a] son or daughter away to be educated." A groundswell of support for education in general and for high schools in particular, emerged in the late 1860s and 1870s. This resulted in the passage of the Free High School law of 1875, the first law to provide state aid to fund high schools. Three curriculums were developed, a three-year course for communities numbering less than 6,000, and four-year English or Classical courses for larger cities, which would prepare students for college or university studies. With monetary incentives and curriculums ready to implement, high school education grew rapidly throughout Wisconsin. By 1900, 209 districts operated high schools, and by the 1922-1923 school year, this number had nearly doubled to 407.
The development of educational institutions in Berlin paralleled that of the State of Wisconsin's. Nathan Strong, founder of the City of Berlin, built a log cabin (demolished) in 1849 near what is today the intersection of Huron and State streets that housed both Berlin's first church and first school. As the town grew over the last half of the nineteenth century, several school buildings grew with it: an 1852 school building east of the Fox River, called "The Long Schoolhouse" and the first Berlin high school; the Sand Hill School (demolished) on Broadway Street west of the Fox River; and another West Side school constructed in 1854 (demolished); a four-room frame school built in 1866 and demolished for the Washington School (completed 1924, extant). A more permanent three-story Second Empire-style high school building was completed in 1869 along Huron Street east of the Fox River, and served both East and West Side children until it was struck by lightning and burned in 1901. To replace it, a three-story brick high school was completed in 1902; this second high school burned in 1916. A primary school called the "Lincoln School" (demolished) was constructed after 1902 adjacent to the 1902 high school and housed kindergarten, first, second, and third-grade classes on the first floor, and the County Normal School on the second floor.
Post-World War I Berlin saw two new schools constructed - Berlin High School (completed 1918), and Washington School at 344 Broadway (completed in 1924, designed by Ashby, Ashby & Schultz). These two schools are the oldest extant public schools in Berlin.
Architects Parkinson & Dockendorff (Original 1918 Building)
The main block of the Berlin High School exemplifies the Collegiate Gothic style and is the work of a prominent architectural firm in Wisconsin, Parkinson & Dockendorff of La Crosse, who were specifically known for their school designs. Albert E. Parkinson emigrated from England and received his training as an architect from both his father as well as the public schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Parkinson began his career as a contractor and engineer in Sparta, Wisconsin by 1897 before transitioning into architectural work. He sold plans for houses, barns, and sheds. Between 1902 and 1904 Parkinson designed residences, a bank, a German Lutheran Church, several schools, and commercial buildings in Sparta, Westby, Viola, and Bloomer.
Bernard J. Dockendorff first apprenticed with the architectural firm of Stolze & Schick in La Crosse before studying architecture in Europe for more than six years. Dockendorff's European studies included two years (1897-1899) at the Technicum in Darmstadt, Germany. Dockendorff returned to La Crosse and set up a solo practice. In 1905, after one year as a solo practitioner, Dockendorff joined with Parkinson to establish a firm in La Crosse.
The architectural firm of Parkinson & Dockendorff went on to become one of the most successful firms in the western half of Wisconsin, best known for their design of modern school buildings throughout the state. The two architects practiced together for almost fifty years, and during that time, produced drawings for roughly 800 building projects in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and North Dakota. Both men died in September 1952.
In 1927, Parkinson & Dockendorff published Twenty-five Years of School House Planning, discussing the essential elements of school design and planning. As part of Parkinson & Dockendorff's educational services, a former educator was kept on staff to survey school district needs, develop school building programs, and review all school plans for details essential to a complete school plant. The thoroughness of Parkinson & Dockendorff's educational planning services coupled with the high level of architectural design and construction oversight elevated the firm to specialists in the field.
Architect Robert W. Surplice (1947 Shop Building and 1955 Gymnasium Addition)
The Shop Building and Gymnasium additions were designed by the Green Bay-based architect Robert W. Surplice. Surplice attended the University of Illinois where he received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture in 1935 and completed graduate work in structural engineering in 1939-1940. After early employment in the offices of various Wisconsin and Michigan-based firms, Surplice established his own architectural practice in 1940. He was registered to practice in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Robert Surplice was the designer of numerous school and church buildings throughout Wisconsin in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
Building Description
The Berlin High School is a two story brick building located at 289 East Huron Street on Berlin's east side, east of the Fox River. The school was constructed in 1918 to replace the high school that had previously stood on the same site which had been destroyed by fire in 1916. The high school was designed by the La Crosse firm of Parkinson & Dockendorff. A one-story shop building was completed in 1947. A gymnasium addition was completed in 1955, which joined the shop building to the main school building. A classroom addition to the north side of the building was completed in 1986. The exterior of the building retains a high level of integrity. While renovations have been made, the interior retains its general layout and spatial orientation. Historic details include classroom doors, transoms, flooring, and trim in the main building; concrete floors and exposed roof structure in the shop addition; original wood floors in the gymnasium addition; exposed brick walls and terrazzo floors in the west gymnasium entrance vestibule; and exposed concrete block walls, wall-anchored benches, and wood cabinetry in the mid-century classroom block.
The Berlin High School is located in a residential neighborhood at the east side of the City of Berlin. The building sits on a sloped site that is bounded by Huron Street to the south, Swetting Street to the west and partially bounded by Johnson Street to the east. The remainder of the east edge of the lot is bounded by adjacent residential lots. The rear, northern edge of the lot also abuts residential lots as well as a baseball field. Berlin High School is centered on its lot, with its primary facade facing Huron Street, and is composed of the original building built in 1918 and a series of rear additions completed in 1947, 1955 and 1986. The front portion of the site, extending between the school's primary facade and Huron Street, is landscaped with a lawn and trees and has two diagonal, concrete sidewalks that lead from the public sidewalk to the school building's main entrance. The remainder of the lot is composed primarily of paved parking lots, a paved playground and limited areas of lawn and plantings surrounding the rear additions. Concrete sidewalks provide access to side entrances off of each Swetting and Johnson Street.
Completed in 1918, the original section of the high school building is two stories tall, set on a raised basement. The building is of brick, has a concrete foundation and a flat roof surrounded by a raised parapet. The building is roughly T-shaped in plan, with a long facade facing Huron Street and a narrow ell extending to the north. A basement level boiler room is set within the northwest recess of the T and projects slightly beyond the west facade. A chimney is located between the boiler room and the main section of the building and extends above the line of the parapet.
The exterior facades are of red brick masonry detailed with Bedford limestone that is used for beltcourses, parapet coping, window sills, door surrounds and ornament. Designed in the Collegiate Gothic style, the building features tower-like bays that mark the building entrances, a shaped parapet line that includes projecting ornament, Tudor-arched entry surrounds, shield designs and sculptural relief detailing composed of tracery-like ornament and arches that frame recessed stone panels.
The building's primary facade faces south and is five bays wide, with a central entrance bay that projects above the adjacent parapet line. The entrance bay is extensively detailed in limestone, including a Tudor-arched and paneled surround at the main entrance. The main entry doors have been replaced with flush metal doors separated by a central glazed panel. Transoms above the doors have been filled in with opaque panels. Above the main entrance are three relief panels featuring shields and the words "BERLIN HIGH SCHOOL" inscribed in limestone. Three, tall, narrow window openings are located at the second-floor level. These have been filled in with opaque panels but the original masonry openings remain. Projecting brick mullions extend from the stone entry surround toward the top of the parapet and the upper portion of the entry bay is detailed with paneled limestone ornament.
At the flanking bays, the south facade is detailed with a flat limestone belt course at the level of the basement window lintels and a projecting belt course above the second-floor windows. The parapets at the end bays have a shaped profile and feature paneled limestone ornament. Windows at the flanking bays of the south facade consist of large rectangular openings that are regularly spaced and each contains a grouping of five windows. Historically the windows were wood, double-hung units with transoms at the first and second floors. The windows have been replaced with smaller aluminum windows or filled in with opaque panels. Despite these changes, the original mullion and transom patterns remain at each window opening.
The design and ornament at the primary facade is carried around to the side and rear facades, but in a more restrained manner. This includes the belt courses, which are carried around all sides of the building, as well as grouped window openings and shaped parapet lines. Side entrances at the east and west facades are each marked with a central, tower-like bay that features a lesser degree of limestone ornament as compared to the main entrance bay at the south facade. The entries at each of the west and east sides of the building are accessed by a stair with a brick knee wall. Each entry is framed with an arched stone surround with stone ornament above. Like the main entrance, the entry doors have been replaced with flush metal doors separated by central glazed panels. The transoms have been filled in with opaque panels. Above each side entrance are two, narrow window openings with stone surrounds and with transoms. The upper portion of each entrance bay is detailed with a shaped parapet and stone ornament.
Flanking the side entry at each of the west and east facades, is a plain brick bay to the south and a fenestrated bay to the north. The fenestrated bay at each side is composed of large rectangular window openings each with five windows, similar to the openings at the primary facade. The original wood windows have been replaced with smaller aluminum windows or filled in with opaque panels, but generally the original mullion and transom patterns remain. At the west facade, a large, opaque panel has been installed over the first-floor windows immediately north of the main entrance.
The rear ell of the building is deeply recessed from the east and west facades and extends three bays north. From the exterior, the first floor of this section of the building is obscured by the original boiler room and the 1955 addition. The second floor remains exposed and features a plain brick wall facing north and large rectangular window openings at the east and west facades. These openings are taller than those at the south portion of the building, marking the assembly room use within. Each opening contains a grouping of three windows with transoms. While original wood windows have been replaced with smaller aluminum windows and filled in with opaque panels, original mullion and transom patterns remain.
The interior of the original building is laid out with classrooms in the south portion of the building and a gymnasium and assembly space in the north ell. Rooms are accessed from a central corridor oriented in an east-west direction at each floor. On the first floor, this corridor is connected to the south, east and west entrances. Each entrance has a stair that brings visitors up to the raised first floor. The east and west entrances include stairs down to the basement and the west entry stair also serves the second floor. A central, bifurcated stair is located across from the main entrance and provides access to the second floor. Large landings just below the second floor level provide access to the assembly room which occupies the north end of the second floor. An enclosed stair at the far north end of the building serves all floors. Corridor floors and stairs throughout are of terrazzo and the walls are finished in marble wainscoting with plaster above. Decorative features include beamed plaster ceilings, arched corridor openings and plaster medallions near the ceilings. Wood doors, trim, handrails and window surrounds remain throughout. The main entrance includes a wood-paneled surround with a leaded-glass transom. Original finishes and features also remain within the classrooms and include wood floors, blackboards, wood trim and built-in cabinetry. The volume of the second-floor assembly room remains intact. Below, the original gymnasium is now used as a cafeteria.
An open mezzanine that surrounded the gymnasium has been enclosed. However, the gymnasium space still retains its spatial volume and wood floor. Other changes throughout include newer finishes such as suspended acoustical tile ceilings in classrooms and new lockers in the corridors. When the 1955 addition was added at the back of the building, a new corridor was cut through former locker room spaces at the east side of the original building.
The shop building was historically built as a free-standing building located northeast of the main school building. It was joined to the main building with construction of the gymnasium addition in 1955. Completed in 1947, the shop building is one story tall and measures approximately 60' by 100'. The building has a concrete foundation, no basement, and a flat roof surrounded by a raised parapet. The facades are of red brick and are unornamented. A large overhead door opening is located at the east facade flanked by a pedestrian door with transom to the south and a small window opening to the north. The south facade has a large rectangular window opening. The original doors have been replaced and window openings have been filled in with opaque panels.
The interior of the shop building is a large, open space with concrete floors, an exposed roof structure and drywall partitions.
Built to provide space for a new gymnasium as well as a library and additional classrooms and offices, the 1955 addition is irregular in plan and extends from the rear (north) of the original building, west of the 1947 shop addition, and south of the 1986 classroom addition. The addition is two stories tall, set on a concrete foundation and raised basement. The exterior facades of the Gymnasium Addition are composed of red brick with a combination of tile, stone and metal coping. At the north facade, the building's concrete base is exposed at the basement level, which is completely above grade here due to the slope of the site. The building has a combination of flat and gabled roofs. The gymnasium entrance is located at the west facade, facing Park Street, and consists of four, double-door openings framed with a limestone surround. The entrance has a projecting canopy and is flanked by small window openings also with limestone surrounds. The north and south facades of the gymnasium portion of the addition have long bands of rectangular window openings located near the roof line. Large rectangular window openings are regularly spaced across the remaining facades of this addition. Windows throughout originally had aluminum, divided-light, awning sash. All windows have been replaced or filled in with opaque panels; however, the original masonry openings remain intact.
The 1955 addition to the building is largely occupied by the gymnasium, with a west gymnasium entrance vestibule, two stories of classrooms, a library, and office space at the east side of the addition. A corridor runs north-south through the irregularly shaped east section of this addition to connect with the main building to the south. The corridor then extends north to connect to the 1986 addition. Stairs serving all floors of the addition are located at the north end of the corridor and toward the south end of the corridor where the addition joins with the shop building. Nearly all offices and shared workspace, including guidance office, counselor office, principal office, staff workroom, conference room, nurse's office, and library, in addition to general storage and mechanical space is located within the 1955 addition. The historic layout remains largely intact, including the corridors, the gymnasium, and library. Corridors and classrooms remain fairly unornamented with vinyl or carpet flooring, exposed brick or painted cement block walls, and simple vinyl trim. Original wood slab doors with single-pane glass are still intact. The gymnasium retains its original wood floor.
Completed in 1986, the classroom addition is roughly rectangular in plan and is located at the north side of the building. The addition is connected to the rest of the building through a canted section at the southwest corner of the addition. The addition is two stories tall with a concrete foundation and gabled roof. The facades are composed of a red brick base with metal cladding above and are largely windowless. Openings are limited to doors and selective, small windows at the east and west facades.
The 1986 classroom addition is laid out with a central, double-loaded corridor serving classroom spaces at each floor. This corridor connects with the main corridor of the 1955 addition, adjacent to its north stair. A large entrance vestibule is located at the first floor near where the 1986 addition joins the 1955 portion of the building. A smaller entry is located at the east side of the first floor. Stairs serving both levels of the addition are located adjacent to this east entrance. The interior of the 1986 addition is simple and unornamented with painted concrete block walls, and vinyl floors and trim in the corridors. The classrooms are similar, with painted concrete block walls, vinyl trim, and carpet. Drop ceilings have recessed lighting.

First Floor Plan (2015)

South Second Floor Plan (2015)

North Second Floor Plan (2015)

Third Floor Plan (2015)

South facade (2015)

South facade entry bay (2015)

West facade (2015)

West facade (2015)

West facade entry detail (2015)

North facade (2015)

West facade of 1986 addition (2015)

East facade (2015)

East facade (2015)
