This School Building in WI was abandoned mid-1970s

Sauk City High School, Sauk City Wisconsin

Date added: February 08, 2024 Categories:

Sauk City's strong educational tradition goes back to its founding.

The village is unique for having been dominated during its first century by German freethinkers and their descendants. The freethinkers were mostly urban intellectuals who brought a steady stream of lecturers and performers to their hall in the village. These public events and the parties and performances held there by members of the Freie Gemeinde, which were open to the public, made the hall (still standing) a natural focus of educational activities. School commencements, picnics and other events were held there from its construction in 1884 to the construction of the high school in 1916. Cultural resource management in Wisconsin Vol. 3 "Education" 3-4,5 notes that effective state aid to secondary education began in 1875 with the payment of ½ the cost of a high school, up to $500 annually. In 1881 the University set out the first standard 3 and 4 year curricula, and requirements for teacher training. In 1885 an inspection system, by the University of Wisconsin, was established. In 1900 the North Central Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges successfully promoted automatic college entrance for graduates of schools it had accredited. A map showing the distribution of high schools in 1900 puts Sauk County among 18 in the state having more than five high schools. A history of education in Wisconsin (Patzer) emphasizes the development of accreditation and the growth of state influence and control. A state high school manual was issued in 1893. School attendance of at least 6 months annually became mandatory in 1907, unless the child was employed. Longer school terms, funded by special state aid, were promoted in 1915. In the same year, a state board of education was established. Whether the growth of the education profession's power and prestige was the cause or the result, high school attendance rose dramatically during this period. When the meeting to consider the need for a new building was held in Sauk City on Tuesday, February 22^nd, 1916, the argument was made that enrollment had already gone from 22 to 48 and would within 5 years be 70. Lest anyone doubt it, said the call, "On the evening of the meeting a list of the students who will be in the high school next year will be placed upon the blackboard so that any doubting Thomas may see for himself." Moreover, it went on, the "high school inspector" had already stated that the present building was inadequate and expressed the hope that Sauk City would "follow the example" of Prairie du Sac and build a school. The real status of the high school at the time is revealed in the statement that "the room" had a capacity of 54. Further, the argument ran, still more students would attend if there were more variety in the offerings, and besides, the community needed a gymnasium and an auditorium. (Sauk County News February 16, 1916, unpaged) Secondary education was relatively well established in Sauk City nonetheless. The architect of the new building graduated there in 1875, and the famous surgeon Albert Ochsner taught high school in the village in 1879. A long-time principal was Charles F. Viebahn, who came to the village from Germany in 1852 and became the first teacher to be certified by the State of Wisconsin. Before the construction of the new building the alumni of the high school had organized the Sauk City Literary Society, which met in the 1891 school building. According to M.T. Buckley, principal, "The assembly room of the high school became the forum where children and adults met to declaim, sing, play, and debate..." getting together developed community consciousness and cooperation and the university recognizing these essential characteristics of community advancement pioneered the first community institute here. It was such a success that it became the model of other institutes throughout the state. Harper's Weekly declares "What Sauk City aims to do is to make the schoolhouse the shining center of all things communal." The quote serves to illustrate the the local enthusiasm for education and the increasing role of the state and university at the time the building was constructed. The building represents the end-point for a long series of developments both in Sauk City and in the relationship of the village to the developing education environment in Madison, including the State Superintendent and the University.

In the new building, the high school continued to produce some prominent graduates. Frieda Schroeder, a descendant of pioneer freethinkers, taught English composition there to the theologian Marcus Bach and authors Mark Schorer and August Derleth. (Anecdotes from their high school days appear in Derleth's Village Daybook of 1947 and Schorer's Pieces of a Life, 1977.) The geneticist John Laughman was also a graduate. Graduates who have played important roles locally include: realtor and Freie Gemeinde president Ralph Marquardt, lumberyard owner Carl Lachmund, and teacher Carl Ganzlin.

Architecture

Like the freethinkers' hall, the high school was designed by native son Alfred C. Clas. The 1884 hall was designed at the beginning of Clas' career, when he was a partner of the Milwaukee architect James Douglas.

Soon after designing the freethinkers' hall, he formed a partnership that became the best-known architectural firm in the state. Ferry and Clas designed many buildings and parks in Milwaukee, and acted as advisors to the State during the construction of the State Capitol. The firm won gold medals at expositions in Chicago in 1893, Paris in 1900, and St. Louis in 1904. The high school dates from near the end of a career which encompassed a number of different styles. (The State Historical Society building, in Beaux Arts style, is a product of the Ferry and Clas firm.) Clas designed the high school in Spanish Mission style in the year following a large exposition which probably served to increase its general popularity. The style is noted in Cultural Resource Management in Wisconsin Vol 2 "Architecture" 2-32, to be rare and poorly understood in Wisconsin. The rustic character which is a feature of the style is expressed on the high school only in the massive wooden "roof beams" below the eaves. Virginia and Lee McAlester observe that the style may be seen as the California counterpart of the eastern Colonial Revival of the same period, 1905-1920, at least in residential design. They note that only a few landmark examples (among residences) include the twin bell towers and arcades typical of the California missions. The style was succeeded, according to the McAlesters, by the "Spanish Eclectic" a more academic mode drawing upon all the sources of Spanish architecture. Thus the window and door treatment on the towers of the school, the small ironwork balconies, the rope colonettes at either side of the tower windows, the double-hung doors and the carved stone ornamentation on the towers and parapets suggest the latter style, while the towers and shaped parapets which give the school its overall form and outline suggest the Spanish Mission style. The building is the unique example of these influences in Sauk City and is locally significant for this fact, while it also adds to our limited experience of the style in Wisconsin.

Sauk City

World War I was a hard time for German-speaking Sauk City. German language textbooks were publicly burned. A hint of the conflicting loyalties that must have been at work can be found in newspaper accounts of events such as the presentation of a bust of the German poet Schiller to the high school by the class of 1914, followed soon after by a masquerade at which the winning costumes were German army soldiers and nurses. But community spirit remained despite wartime hysteria. Rivalry with English-speaking Prairie du Sac went back to the founding of the two villages, so when Prairie cu Sac built a new high school in 1915 (since demolished) and the Sauk County News took note of the visit of the principal of the Sauk City High School to the new building, it is not surprising that soon after there was a public call for a meeting to discuss a new school building for Sauk City.

The meeting to decide on a new school building was a success and a $20,000 loan "from the state trust funds, payable in 15 years with interest at rate of 4 percent" was authorized. The Committee to implement the decision included Principal Newlun and long-time village librarian Josephine Merk. How the architect was selected is not clear, but in April 1916 a call for bids was published, to be sent to Alfred C. Clas in Milwaukee. The bids came in high and in July a further loan was taken for $10,000. $5,500 was appropriated from village funds for the first year's operating expenses.

Despite the projections, there was some anxiety about filling the new building. Ralph Marquardt, a member of the first graduating class (1921) recalls that Grade 7 was given a hurry-up advancement and sent to high school in the fall of 1917 to swell the enrollment.

An advertisement in the fall of 1916 read "Why go off to a city and pay for what you can get better without cost at home? Please note that we teach farming, wood and metal work, drafting, cooking, sewing, bookkeeping, stenography and typewriting, commercial law, all practical and useful subjects in addition to what is usually offered." And it added, "We have secured suitable quarters for the new courses until the new building...is completed. We are ready for as many students as may come..."

Between the World Wars, the high school did become the pride and joy of the community. Its Bulletin for 1922-23 noted that Sauk City had a population of 1200 (about ½ its present size) paved streets, 24-hour electricity and a new bridge across the Wisconsin River. The high school offered free tuition to those outside the village (it was collected from the townships) and a library with 1090 hooks and three encyclopedias. Moreover, the Bulletin states, "In connection with our physics lab we have a very efficient radio receiving set. Weather reports and the stock and market reports are received from the University of Wisconsin every day. These reports are posted on the public bulletin board at the Post Office." Concerts from Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Denver and Madison are also mentioned. Ralph Marquardt recalls that the basketball team drew large crowds to its games, and placed second in an area tournament, held in Richland Center. (Middleton took first.) In 1928 there were five faculty and 18 graduates. In that year a "Department of Chemistry" was begun and tennis courts built on the school grounds. (Information from 1922-23 Bulletin, Marquardt interview and 1928 annual report. The Bulletin and the annual report are in the files of the Sauk-Prairie school district.)

Carl Ganzlin recalls that physical discipline was common in the 1920s. The new principal, Carson Hatfield, had to contend with boys who came in from the rural areas only after the harvest, and left again for spring planting, so that an initial class of 25 or 30 might yield a dozen graduates. The country children had a choice of Sauk City or Prairie du Sac. Prairie du Sac was a largely Methodist town and its "prim little school" had no dances or prom, while in Sauk City dancing, cards and, until prohibition the saloon, were all accepted. Although allegiance to the German origins of Sauk City never fully recovered, the bust of Schiller survived the war and was noted in a 1932 insurance inventory of the school. He had been joined by Beethoven, Lincoln, Shakespeare and a lion. The building at this time was valued at $70,682. Its equipment included "gas stove ovens" in the home economics room, 2 pianos, library books, valued at $3680, science equipment worth $695 and a "Chinese gong in oak frame" in the principal's office. (Students in the 1950s would sell magazine subscriptions to raise money for an intercom system.)

Teaching there in the 1930s, Ganzlin recalls that for $900 a year he taught each day 4 classes of English and 2 of German. He also served as librarian and ticket-taker at the basketball games and produced 2 plays each year. But, he says, nobody regimented his teaching, the class size was around 16, and the plays drew audiences of 200 or more. Total enrollment was about 110 to 120. William Leahy, who came to teach at the school in 1931 and was its principal from 1938 to 1964 remembers the sometimes stormy tenure of August Derleth as director of the school board. Derleth sometimes felt he should supervise the school himself, until Leahy drew the line.

Upon becoming director of the school board, Derleth undertook to solve the heating problem by building a separate heating plant. He asked his friend, Leo Weissenborn to design it, and thus provoked an inquiry from the Clas firm, now headed by Alfred's son Rubens. Derleth's letter of reply included this passage: "There is no question of prejudice, though there is strong feeling in Sauk City that the present high school building, for all its handsome appearance, was inadequately planned, showing lack of foresight, but, whether this was the fault of the then board or of the architect, we are of course not in a position to state." This, of course, only served to make matters worse, and Weissenborn wrote to Derleth, "According to my present understanding, Clas' claim for reimbursement on the original high school has not been satisfied..." Weissenborn then withdrew, telling Derleth that he ought to get a heating engineer to design and build the plant. (Information from letters on file at the Sauk-Prairie school board office)

The heating plant was constructed, and the furnace from the old school building north of the high school was moved to it, along with a new oil burner. This freed space in the old school for a lunch room. The improvements were just in time, for the following year saw the beginning of World War II and the construction of the Badger Ordnance plant on the prairie north of the village. The annual reports during Derleth's six-year tenure include his accounts of struggles with the often unreasonable demands of the new neighbor, and the vastly increased enrollment. ("In view of the rapidly changing population of the area the Board made weekly payment of tuition a requirement." --1943) Ominously, one report addresses the issue of anti-communism and censorship of textbooks. The board sought and obtained federal assistance against the cost of enrolling the new influx of students but, Derleth complained, "Asking and getting such aid is really a profession in itself and certainly a full time operation..countless documents, questionnaires, forms, reports...tons of red tape..."

The struggle to accommodate more students continued into the 1950s. The student body was now twice the level of the 1930s. In 1951 the state superintendent recommended a building program, and immediate remodeling of the high school. The new wing, finished in 1954, provided relief for a time, but in 1964 the school district was consolidated with Prairie du Sac and a new high school was built. The Sauk City High School was closed, then re-opened when fire destroyed a junior high. Finally, in the mid-1970s, it was boarded up and abandoned.

Building Description

The Sauk City High School is a 2½ story brick building, 80' by 60', built in 1916 in Spanish Mission style. Except for a small movie projection booth on the south wall and the forward extension of two pavilions: to form the twin bell towers characteristic of Mission style, the building is a simple rectangle. The 80' front facade faces east on Madison Street, on the western edge of the original plat of the village of Sauk City (1988 population approximately 2500.) The neighborhood remains residential. Once surrounded by lawns and large trees, and flanked on the south by St. Aloysius Church and on the north by the 1891 Sauk City school building, with a one-story, 1877 building in front of it, the high school sits today in an expanse of asphalt paving surrounded by a chain-link fence. Behind the 1916 school a one-storey addition, constructed in 1954, occupies the entire southwest corner of the block. The 115' by 160' addition contains a gym/auditorium and several classrooms. This part of the building is used as a community center; it is joined to the southwest corner of the basement of the original high school by a passageway.

The twin towers at the north and south corners of the facade are its principal feature. They project approximately 5' from the plane of the facade and contain the entryways and staircases of the building. Each tower is decorated with a tall narrow window over the first floor entry. These windows end in round arches with radiating brick voussoirs and stone keystones, and overlook small cantilevered balconies. On each floor is a row of nine flat arched windows, closely spaced between the towers. The roof is flat. There is a 24-foot overhanging eave running across the facade between the towers, supported by massive brackets simulating extended roof beams; this horizontal line is repeated by a continuous stone sill below each row of windows. The towers are topped by curved parapets trimmed with carved stone copings. The entryways and balconies are also decorated with carved stone. The Spanish Mission theme expressed on the facade is seen on the north and south walls only in curved parapets that surmount them. The careful composition of the front wall is abandoned on these walls in favor of a functional window arrangement. The rear wall is a single plane except for an overhanging eave corresponding to the one that connects the towers on the front wall. The tower theme is expressed by curved parapets matching those of the front pavilions, and by window placement.

The facade of the building is structurally unaltered from its original appearance; even the opalite balls with brass mountings, which accentuate the entryways, are described in the architect's specifications. (The plan is in the files of the Sauk Prairie School Board.) The fluted stone pedestals which support the ornamental balconies and the arched stone lintels over the entryways are particularly fine.

Inside, the upper two floors comprise 8 classrooms and 4 special-purpose areas arranged along hallways running parallel to the front facade. In the basement are sanitary facilities, a gym/auditorium that retains its stage and proscenium arch at the north end of the room, and a room designated in the plan as a manual arts classroom. (Damp has always had a problem in the basement. Shop classes were held in the 1877 building. In 1941 a concrete block building was built on the northwest corner of the block to house a farm shop. Both the 1891 and the 1877 buildings are long since demolished. Construction of the heating plant was the occasion for the installation of steam pipes and radiators in the high school.

The ventilation and heating system originally installed in the building, although advanced in concept, never worked very well. A large fan in the northeast corner of the basement drew warm air from a heating plant in the 1891 school building and forced it through vents to the classrooms. (This equipment and vents are still in place.) A fresh air intake, in place next to the north wall, could be controlled with a manually operated damper. Another advanced feature of the building was the projection booth. Its importance is seen in the use of massive roof beams, identical to those on the main building, on its diminutive roof. Movies had been shown to the public in the 1891 building as early as 1914. The new facility was a windowless room reached by a small stair from the gym/auditorium. By the 1930s it had been rendered obsolete by portable projectors which could be set up in the classrooms.

The Sauk City school system was heavily impacted by the rocket powder plant established north of the village during World War II. The original high school building had been designed for 150 students; during the 1930s enrollment was 110 to 120. By the 1950s upwards of 250 students were in attendance. The State Superintendent recommended in 1951 that the district build more facilities, and added that in the meantime remodeling was imperative. Accordingly, the floor of the gym/auditorium was raised 5' to combat the dampness, and the area was then used as a classroom. A first-floor assembly room and the connecting library were partitioned into three classrooms. On the second floor, a wall between the science lab and the adjacent classroom has been removed to form one large room across the front of the building; this may have occurred at this time. In 1954 the addition was built. The gym/auditorium was partitioned to create a passageway across the south end of the basement, leading from the hallway to the new addition. Despite the addition of the two partition walls and the removal of a wall the woodwork and original door and window openings on the first and second floors are intact. In the basement the stage and proscenium arch are intact but the original function of the room is somewhat obscured by the raised floor and partition across the south end. The halls and stairways are in their original condition, except for floor tile, lowered ceilings, and fluorescent light fixtures which were installed in 1962.

The building program of the school district expanded in the 1960s and by 1964 a new high school had been built. The Sauk City High School was closed. However in December 1965 a junior high building in Prairie Gu Sac burned and the high school was re-opened to house grades 7 and 8. In 1968 the glass transoms were replaced with plywood, plumbing fixtures were replaced, new wiring was installed and floors and ceilings were covered with tile and carpeting. Fluorescent fixtures were installed in the lowered ceilings. Until the mid-1970s the building housed grades 4, 5 and 6 for the consolidated district. It was then boarded up, except for the 1954 addition.

Despite the 1951 alterations and the 1968 renovation, the interior retains its original character. The most striking features of the rooms are their many windows, extending nearly to the original ceiling, and the massive, dark woodwork. Much of the wall space is given over to blackboards and cork boards, framed in the same un-ornamented woodwork as the doors and windows. A chair rail extends the line of the sills and chalk trays around the rooms. The structure of the building can be seen in pillars and ceiling beams which form bays at 13' intervals along the north/south axis. The stairwells are lighted by the single tall windows of the front towers, and by spherical opalite balls which match those in the exterior entryways. The proportions of the stairwells are quite handsome. The massive wooden front doors are paired to span the 6' wide entry. At the front on the first floor are the principal's office, teachers' lounge, domestic science room, and a small serving area. To the rear are three classrooms, originally a connected assembly room and library. On the second floor are three classrooms to the rear and the science lab, originally partitioned into the lab and a classroom.

While not all of its innovative features succeeded, the building was and is of obvious quality in its design, materials, and workmanship. Except for the mostly cosmetic alterations of 1968, it has been virtually unaffected by 60 years of use and a decade of disuse. The floor plan is largely intact. The windows have been covered from the outside with particle board, but the frames and mullions, encasing openings approximately 3' by 7', with six-over-six panes, are seen from the inside to be in original condition, as are the three-by-eleven paned tower windows and the outside doors.