Property Record
1200 PARK AVE
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | St. Catherine's High School |
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| Other Name: | ST. CATHERINE'S HIGH SCHOOL |
| Contributing: | Yes |
| Reference Number: | 11409 |
| Location (Address): | 1200 PARK AVE |
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| County: | Racine |
| City: | Racine |
| Township/Village: | |
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| Year Built: | 1923 |
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| Additions: | 1948 |
| Survey Date: | 1994 |
| Historic Use: | elementary, middle, jr.high, or high |
| Architectural Style: | Prairie School |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Brick |
| Architect: | FRANCIS BARRY BYRNE; Alphonso Iannelli-Sculptor |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Southside Historic District |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 10/18/1977 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 1/1/1989 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| Additional Information: | Photo code #1 is D-106/23. CORNER ENTRANCE WITH STATUE ABOVE ELABORATE BRICKWORK IN CORNICE POINTED ARCH TOP FLR WINDOWS. Originally a day school for young ladies (with boarding), St. Catherine's Female Academy dropped the word "female" in 1888. In 1924, this building was erected as a coeducational offshoot of the Academy. The plans were drawn by Chicago architect, Barry Byrne, who also designed the similar St. Patrick's Church. Described as "modernized Gothic", this imaginative design is carried out in orange brick with buff terra-cotta trim. A major addition was made on Park Ave. in 1948. South Side Historic District Walking Tour Guide: "The first Catholic nuns in Racine were an order of Dominican Sisters who arrived in 1862 and taght in local parochial school. Two years later they founded St. Catharina Female Academy. Within ten years it included an accredited high school- at a time when the education of girls to that level was not common. The academy was then located in the block east of the present buliding, and it because coeducational in the 1920s, about the time the first section of this building was being constructed. In 1923 Fracis Barry Byrne (1883-1967) was commissioned as architect and builder of a new St. Catherine's High School. Byrne was an internationally known architect of the Prairie School who specialized in building churches and schools. Although he worked in Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park Studio from 1902 to 1908, he developed his own style. Wright reportedly said that Byrne, "rather than imitating...built in the spirit of organic architecture." In 1948 an addition was completed along the east side, south of the original building. Racine architect A.J. Seitz extended the Byrne and lanelli patterns and designed an additional entryway. Several other additions have been made on the west side, the latest of which was done in 1986 by Pfaller, Herbst, Eppstein of Milwaukee." |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Historic name: "Southside Historic District Walking Tour Guide." Racine Landmarks Perservation Comission. May, 1993. (B) Susan Karr, Architectural and Historical Survey of the City of Racine (Racine, WI: Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1980), 45. Racine Landmarks Preservation Commission, Racine Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie School Architecture Tour Guide, 1994. Racine Landmarks Preservation Commission, South Side Historic District Walking Tour Guide, 1993. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |