| Additional Information: | Previously surveyed in 1984.
Located on Doty Island and at the corner of Nicolet Boulevard and Washington Street, St. Patrick's Catholic Church Complex is comprised of a church building (AHI#61579), school and gymnasium (AHI#61578), convent (AHI#153681)and rectory (AHI#153682).
The 1883 brick church is a bit of a cross between Romanesque and Gothic Revival in style and features a brick corbel table along all elevations, as well as a short, central tower. The side walls are vertically articulated with stepped buttresses that alternate with Gothic-arched openings with tracery and stained-glass windows. A Gothic Revival-styled, stone-trimmed, brick entrance addition was constructed in 1954, while a flat-roofed, one-story wing extends from the rear to connect with a very recent parish hall addition.
Although Catholic services were held as early as 1836 in the general vicinity of Menasha, it was not until 1848 that a mission was established west of Menasha, which was to serve Catholics in both Neenah and Menasha. The following year, a group of twenty-five Irish families (who had been brought to the area to work on the Fox River dam and canal) erected a log church on the site of the existing church. Two years later, a frame church was erected and in 1857, it was dedicated to St. Borromeo. In 1868, a brick school was added to the site and, in March of 1882, fire destroyed the frame church. The subject brick church was built the following year and dedicated to St. Patrick. Between 1899 and 1900 a new parsonage, convent and school were erected (none of the three remain extant) and, in 1916, a tower was added to the church (which was subsequently taken down in 1963). In 1941, a new school was built (designed by Eschweiler & Eschweiler) and, in 1954, a new entrance addition was completed on the church, which was designed by local Appleton architect Maury Lee Allen. The interior was also remodeled to include a mosaic done by Edward Lewandowski, the director of the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. In 1961, the convent was razed and the existing one was completed (further east) the following year; a six-room school addition now occupies the former convent site. There are no longer School Sisters in residence and the building was later used as the parish center; later still it was rented out to the Theda Clark Regional Medical Center. Finally, the Queen Anne-style rectory was demolished and the existing one was built in 1973. The school closed in June of 1988 and remained closed through September 1989, at which time it reopened as Seton Catholic Middle School, part of the consolidated Catholic education system in Neenah-Menasha. |
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| Bibliographic References: | "School Sisters of Notre Dame convent," photo and caption, Appleton Post-Crescent, 16 February 1962.
"St. Patrick's Church is Older than Menasha; Once Parishers (sic) Mortgaged Homes to Rebuild It," Twin Cities News-Record, 1 July 1953.
"St. Patrick's Church Organized in 1848 by 25 Pioneer Families," unidentified newspaper clipping, 26 May 1967, 2-3.
"St. Patrick's Church," photos and caption, Twin Cities News-Record, 31 December 1954.
"St. Patrick's Church," typescript timeline.
A photo of the original rectory is found in the "Official Souvenir of the Eighth Biennial State Convention of the Catholic Order of Foresters of Wisconsin," held in Menasha, Wisconsin (June 11-13, 1907).
Copy of photo, as well as all previous newspaper clippings, in the St. Patrick's Church file at the Menasha Historical Society Research Center.
Eschweiler & Eschweiler, "School & Gymnasium for St. Patrick's Congregation, Menasha," Original plans, 12 April 1940-28 January 1941, On file at the Wisconsin Architectural Archive. |
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