| Additional Information: | St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth, a medical, residential, and educational institution for the developmentally disabled, was organized by the sisters of St. Francis Assisi in 1904 at the behest of Father George Meyer of St. Lawrence Catholic Church, who accepted four families’ requests to care for their mentally disabled children. Property immediately east of the City of Jefferson was purchased because of the existing convent and school for girls operated by Franciscan nuns at the church. By the early twentieth century, a large campus of residence halls, chapels, an infirmary, administration building, classrooms, and natatorium occupied the southeast corner of Highway 18 and County Road Y in the Town of Jefferson, which was recently annexed into the City of Jefferson. During the 1930s the institution’s name was changed to St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children. St. Coletta became the largest, oldest, and most influential Catholic school in the United States specializing in the care and training of the mentally disadvantaged while encouraging views of various mental conditions to change at a national level.
A dormitory was constructed approximately one mile north of the main campus in 1937. Additions were made to the Alverno Dormitory in the 1950s. In 1958, a house was built adjacent to the St. Coletta School Alverno Dormitory for Rose Marie Kennedy, a resident at St. Coletta and member of the prominent American political family. A miniature golf course was constructed on the grounds of the Alverno Dormitory sometime during the mid-to-late-twentieth century. A small pavilion was constructed on the lawn adjacent to the miniature golf course during the mid-to-late-twentieth century.
Since that time, the institution has become known as St. Coletta of Wisconsin and continues to provide senior nursing care and housing, job placement, recreation, and other services for the developmentally disabled to this day. Further alterations to the Alverno Dormitory were made in 2009 to convert the building into a new corporate headquarters for St. Coletta of Wisconsin, as its patients have lived off-site in apartments across southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois integrated into local communities since that time. St. Coletta sold its main campus in 2011.
See St. Coletta School Historic District site file.
The main building, which probably is the original building in the complex, is a two-story, cream brick structure with a flat roof and Georgian Revival details. It was built in 1937 to house adults who had been students of the school. Several modern additions have been appended to the sides and the rear. dormitory |
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| Bibliographic References: | Determination of Eligibility Form: St. Coletta School Historic District. National Register of Historic Places Registration, National Park Service, 1988.
History, St. Coletta of Wisconsin website. <www.stcolettawi.org/about-us/history.php> Accessed June 23, 2013.
Swart, Hannah. Koshkonong Country – A History of Jefferson County Wisconsin. Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin: W. D. Hoard & Sons Co., 1975. Page 64. |
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