Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls

Fitchburg, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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The Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls was a reform school established in Milwaukee following an 1875 legislative act that authorized industrial schools for criminal, vagrant, and deserted children. Originally named the Milwaukee Industrial School, it took its expanded name as it drew inmates from across the state. Located at 465 Lake Drive overlooking Milwaukee Bay on an eight-acre site donated by the city, the institution operated as Wisconsin's only secular reformatory for delinquent and neglected girls, combining discipline and education tailored to pupils' individual needs. A complex of structures housed the school's operations, including a main building, multiple cottages, assembly hall, and support facilities. The main building, constructed in 1932 in Tudor Revival style, stands as the surviving architectural representative of this institution, which admitted boys only under age ten.

Movement

Tudor Revival architecture

Built: 1932
Type: vocational school, school building, reform school
Heritage: listed in the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places, National Register of Historic Places listed place
Place: Fitchburg, United States

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Location

42.96167, -89.37750