| Additional Information: | A 'site file' (Wisconsin Home for the Feebleminded) exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the State Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation.
Rough stone lintels linked by rough stone belt courses; projecting entrance bay with gabled open entrance suppported by capped brick piers; minor alterations to structure; six over six windows.
Sited according to a plan by Chicago landscape architect E. G. Nelson of Chicago, Cottage #7 exhibits the hip roof, gabled roof dormers and symmetrical facade arrangement of a very simplified Georgian Revival design suitable for utilitarian turn of the century public institutional architecture. Sandstone window sills, coursing, belt courses, water table and foundation contrast with the red brick in a design originally drawn by architect John Charles for the first dormitory on the site in 1896.
Part of the historic institutional care complex now known as the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled, Cottage #7 is architecturally significant as an excellent representative of institutional architecture as constructed at the turn of the century.
This dormitory was built after a 1905 legislatie appropriation. The local newspaper did not announce that bids would be accepted for the building unti August, 1905 and bids to insure the building after its construction were not made until 1907. This circumstantial evidence indicates a 1906 construction date.
The Wisconsin Home for the Feebleminded was established by the state legislature in 1895 which appropriated $100,000 to purchase land and construct suitable buildings. The first resident was admitted in June of that year. In 1923, the name was changed to the Northern Center for the Developmentally Disabled.
This building was probably constructed in 1906, following a 1905 legislative appropriation to expand the facilities at the Home.
This building is of significant historical interest to the State of Wisconsin because it is part of the historic development of the Wisconsin Home for the Feebleminded. The creation of the Wisconsin Home for the Feebleminded established the State's commitment to the care of the developmentally disabled.
RELATED BUILDINGS: outbuildings (11/33, 34, 36, 37), cottages (15/21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 34, 36), admin/chapel (15/23, 31, 37), residence (15/33). Demolished in the late 1980s according to the book Island of Refuge Page #144. One of the pictures shows Cottage 9 in the background. Demolition would have been after an abatement project #8710-02 with a bid date of 1/27/1988. The book "Island of Refuge" states that the Cottage was closed for patients in 1977. dormitory |
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| Bibliographic References: | (A) Wisconsin Blue Book (Madison: State of Wisconsin, 1907), p. 654-655.
(B) The Daily Independent 1 August, 1905.
(C) "Building Inventory," Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled, Chippewa Falls (Eau Claire: Department of Health and Social Services), unpublished statistics.
(D) A History of the State Board of Control of Wisconsin and the State Institutions, 1849-1939 (Madison, Wisconsin: State Board of Control, 1939), pp. 179-180.
(E) Chippewa Falls (WI) Herald 20 March, 1896 and 1 April, 1896.
(F) Chippewa County, Wisconsin Past and Present, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1913), pp. 289-290. |
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