St. Mary’s Academy and College is notable as an all-female Catholic school (variously known as St. Mary’s Institute, St. Mary’s Academy, and St. Mary’s College) that operated in the building between 1872 and 1968. The School Sisters of Notre Dame operated the school until 1960. It was reopened by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1961, with a final graduating class in 1968.

St. Mary’s was one of the only Catholic girls’ schools operating in the region during the late-nineteenth century and drew students from throughout the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. In 1913, the school became the first four-year Catholic college for women established in Wisconsin. It continued as a preparatory high school for girls from 1929 through the 1960s.

The building is a large and intact example of an Italianate style institutional building designed built over a period of four decades (1872-1914). Its design and use as a Catholic boarding school and college required interior spaces that could accommodate the school’s expanding needs, with spaces for student housing, worship and prayer, recreation, study spaces, and offices.