Benedictine College North Campus Historic Complex
St. Benedict’s Abbey was founded to serve German settlers in Kansas Territory in April 1857. Father Augustine Wirth and four other brothers of the Order of Saint Benedict moved from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, to settle first in Doniphan, Kansas Territory.
As Atchison began to grow the Benedictines were invited to establish a school for boys. Father Wirth held the community’s first Catholic services in Atchison on Christmas Day in 1858. The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church was a small frame structure at the corner of Second and Division streets, on land donated by Benjamin Stringfellow, was located on a hill far from main street.
With support from King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the Benedictines laid the cornerstone for more permanent structures to serve the college and priory on May 29, 1859. The building, now the Old Priory/Lemke Hall, was nearly complete and ready for occupancy by September. The Old Priory initially served as both college and monastery. Additions in 1862 included a basement with kitchen, cook room, and cellar; first floor dining room, four classrooms, and a hall; second story with two classrooms, examination room, and parlor; and third story with hall and two dormitories. The day school opened in 1862 with a classical curriculum focused on preparing students for the priesthood.
The cornerstone for St. Benedict’s Parish Church, was laid in 1866. The grand design envisioned for the church proved to be difficult. When it opened in summer 1868 portions were yet incomplete and the monastery faced debt. Work continued to finish the building’s façade, twin towers, stained glass rose window, vaulted ceiling, marble alter, and frescos. St. Benedict’s Church was consecrated on Thanksgiving Day in 1906.
Bishop Fink Hall was built in fall 1878 as a classroom and refectory building. An addition was made in 1883 to accommodate the more than 100 boarding students.
A monastery built “for the exclusive use of the Fathers and Brothers” was completed in 1893, the largest building in Atchison at the time. The Benedictine Brothers assisted with the carpentry work. The three-story brick building allowed the community to live within the cloister and was home to 35 priests and 14 clerics. The old monastery, now Freshman Hall, included parlors, guest rooms, sacristy, chapel, chapel annex, skylight studio, arcade to connect with other buildings in the quadrangle plan. By 1894 the college had 175 boarding students.
Several of the older buildings were removed and a new monastery was built near the river bluffs in 1928. Foundations for the abbey church were laid but the project was delayed after the stock market crash in 1929. Architect Bart Byrne of Chicago, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, was chosen in 1945. Byrne’s design of the abbey church required the used of the earlier foundation. The abbey church was completed in 1857 with a modern interior featuring side-facing choir galleries and a nave with four tall piers. A student nave is located behind the altar. Much of the colorful interior artwork was designed by Byrne’s wife, Annette Cremin Byrne.
Until 1885 the school had three different curricula: a six-year classical program, a three-year commercial program, and a preparatory program. From 1885 to 1915 the college was primarily a traditional academy. Between 1915 and 1927 the institution enlarged the curriculum to become a liberal arts college. The high school program, called Maur Hill Prep School, began in 1919. Then in 1971 St. Benedict’s College merged with Mount St. Scholastica, the women’s college founded in 1863, to form the largest private college in Kansas. In 2003 the merger of the two prep schools created Maur Hill-Mount Academy to serve as a coed Catholic college prep boarding high school.
The Benedictine College North Campus Historic Complex was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
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