Ellis School is a

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

building in Ashland,

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

which was built in 1900. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on July 17, 1980. It is noted for its

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

—the design of

Henry Wildhagen Henry Wildhagen (September 1, 1856 – March 23, 1920) was one of northern Wisconsin's best-known architects at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Hannover, Germany in 1856 and studied at the Technical University of Hannover. He immigra ...

—which is of the 19th- and 20th-century revival styles. It is a two-story-plus-basement Neoclassical building. A 1979 architectural review described it as follows:

"...simple, rectangular mass is varied only by a projecting center pedimented pavilion, cut by a Neoclassical arch over the entrance. The brownstone
voussoirs A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
and keystone of the arch and the basement story contrasted with the brick walls relate to the materials of the other schools. Although the grand arch and triple-window motif is again used to mark the story over the entrance, the omission of overt
Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
references make the Ellis School unique among its fellows. Distribution of double-hung windows to either side of the center pavilion is regular, with four to each side. An elliptical window is set into the center pediment which intersects the low pyramidal roof."

Wildhagen also designed three other schools in Ashland which are also NRHP-listed: Ashland Middle School (1904), Beaser School (1899), and Wilmarth School (1895). and The thematic resources document notes the four schools were built in 1895, 1899, 1900, and 1904, according to school records, without distinguishing which (page 5). However, Beaser School was 1899-built (page 4). Ashland Middle School was the "finally produced" one (page 5), hence must be 1904-built. Ellis is "closest in age" to the middle school (page 4), so it must be the 1900 one. Wilmarth is noted to have been built in 1895.

Notes

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures in Ashland County, Wisconsin School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin School buildings completed in 1895 National Register of Historic Places in Ashland County, Wisconsin Ashland, Wisconsin School buildings completed in 1900 1900 establishments in Wisconsin