Auditorium

Facts

Completion Date: 1888

Cost: $35,000

Demolition Date: 1933

Original Purpose of Building: A gymnasium, the building was later re-fitted as an auditorium.

Current Use: Destroyed

History

When completed in 1888, this building became the first gymnasium built in the Wisconsin Normal System. When a new gym was built twenty years later, the building was used for two years as classrooms for the upper grades of the training school. Following 1910, the decaying building was used for storage. After the fire of 1916, it was pressed into service again, this time as the school’s auditorium.

Photos

Students demonstrating the Ling, or Swedish, program of gymnastics in the auditorium when it was a gymnasium, 1898

North looking exterior of the auditorium connected to both the Gymnasium (right) and Dempsey Hall (left).

South looking exterior shows the auditorium's skylights and the Dempsey tennis courts, 1926.

The interior of the auditorium in 1927.