Early years (1852-1859) Racine College was first conceived at an
Episcopal Church conference held in Milwaukee in 1851. Bishop
Jackson Kemper, who headed the meeting, became the founder of the college even before a site had been laid out for it. Prominent citizens of Racine, including
Marshall Strong and Dr. Elias Smith, successfully lobbied to have the college built in their city and raised funds for a rural six-acre site on a bluff overlooking the lake. The
state legislature granted the institution a charter on March 3, 1852. The first classes began in May of that year, which were held in a rented room in the city because the college was still under construction. Construction of the first college building, Park Hall, was not finished until September 1853. The first major expansion to the college came in 1857, when a second building was deemed necessary.
Lucas Bradley, one of Racine's most prominent architects, was chosen to design the building, which he chose to make "a twin to the first". This building, Kemper Hall, was completed in the autumn of 1859. During the same year, the national economy was suffering the end of the
Panic of 1857, and Racine began to be affected. When DeKoven began to raise money for new buildings at Racine College, he looked to England for his inspiration. Most of the campus buildings were inspired by the architecture of
St. Peter's College, a high-church
public school founded at Radley in 1847. Most of Park Hall was destroyed by fire on January 15, 1864, and almost all of the sizable library of former president Roswell Park was lost. Thanks to donations by the people of Racine, a replacement building was constructed within the year. The college was also able to begin construction on a third building, St. John's Chapel, within the same year. Two years later, Emeline Taylor, the widow of former Racine College trustee Isaac Taylor, died and bequeathed $65,000 to the institution. This sum allowed for the construction of the campus' fourth and largest building, which was named Taylor Hall. As a result of this further expansion, the college continued to build new facilities. A dining hall was constructed in 1871 and an assembly hall followed the next year. A fire on February 4, 1875, destroyed much of the interior of Taylor Hall, although the outlying structure remained intact. Because of this, the building was able to be restored for less than half the cost of the original construction, although collegiate education was forced to be canceled for several weeks and did not fully return to its prior state for over a year afterward. 1875 also saw the construction of yet another new building, which housed both a gymnasium and a chemistry laboratory. Racine College was one of the first schools to have
a college football team. They were known as the Racine Purple Stockings, after the
Chicago White Stockings, on whose field they played. Racine and the
University of Michigan Wolverines played the Midwest's first intramural college
football game on May 30, 1879. Michigan won, 1–0. The team continued to play in the NCAA for the next ten years, and frequently played against teams such as
Harvard,
Yale,
Princeton,
Northwestern, and
Wisconsin.
Decline as a college (1879-1889) DeKoven died suddenly on March 19, 1879, after serving as Racine's warden for two decades. His funeral was held there three days later, and when the Episcopal Church declared him a
saint, March 22 became his feast day. He is buried on campus, just outside the wall of St. John's Chapel. His work in theology and education was compared to that of
John Keble, and like him, DeKoven's grave was considered a shrine by Anglicans. After DeKoven's death, the standing of the college began to decline. As a result, the school's endowment shrank quickly, which led to a further decline in the quality of education. The collegiate department at Racine was forced to close in 1889, just ten years after the height of its success and influence. In closing the college, its trustees explained that with its lowered funding, it could no longer maintain a high educational standard.
Preparatory school and later years (1889-1933) Following the closure of the collegiate department, the grammar school remained and became a
preparatory school. A military school also occupied the site, and the institution as a whole was advertised as a "school for manly boys". During this time, most boys enrolled at Racine College were secondary (or grammar) school students preparing for the Bachelor of Arts course. The campus continued to be a major location for the Episcopal Church, which held a number of conferences there in the early 20th century. The campus was vacant for a few years, before it reopened as the Racine Academy in 1923. After resolving the college's debts, which were in excess of $100,000, the Academy opened its doors on October 1, 1923. Chicago business interests funded much of the repayment.
Closure and recent history (1933-present) The Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee lost ownership of the grounds after the school's closure, but Bishop
Benjamin Ivins was able to arrange a summer camp at the property, run by the
Community of St. Mary, in 1934. Another summer camp was held the following year, and this was successful enough that the Community of St. Mary bought the property just before a sheriff's sale was to be held that fall. In December, the sisters created the DeKoven Foundation for Church Work to manage the campus, and organize "retreats, conferences, and church activities," as well as continue to host a yearly summer camp for girls. The campus became home to the Racine Montessori School, Racine's first school offering
Montessori education, in September 1963. Originally opened in a single room in the East Building and educating only 32 students, the school continually grew to rent a larger space and enroll over two hundred. The
Case Corporation donated the nearby former Lakeside School building, which had closed in 1979, to Racine Montessori, allowing the school to move out of DeKoven in 1996. The Spectrum School of the Arts and Community Gallery opened in the East Building in 1980. A
summer school for children and year-round school for adults, Spectrum offers supplemental art classes to people of all ages. In addition to fine art shows, the Spectrum Gallery, opened in 1996, still holds regular classes and exhibitions of students' artwork. A controversial development plan, proposed in 1995, would have converted the college buildings into apartments, as well as constructing new apartment buildings within the site. This plan was rejected by the DeKoven Foundation and a coalition of local residents. The DeKoven Natatorium, a community swimming pool located in the gymnasium, closed on March 1, 2013, after 100 years of operation. The cost of maintaining the pool grew too high for the DeKoven Foundation to afford. The pool had been added to the gym building in 1913, one of the few architectural additions since the death of DeKoven, and had previously closed in 1979 because of structural problems. After a renovation effort, it had reopened in 1991. The DeKoven Center holds a variety of regional and national/international events in addition to serving as a community event space. in the past, one of the largest annual events, that took place in St. John's Chapel and the Great Hall, was the
madrigal feast put on by the choir and theater departments of
Horlick High School. ==Notable students==