Wheeler Hall, Northland College

Wheeler Hall is the original building of Northland College. Initially organized as North Wisconsin Academy, the school was conceived and constructed as a result of efforts of philanthropists and educators of Congregational persuasion from Wisconsin and Minnesota. The idea was first proposed at a conference at Pratt (now Grandview) in 1891. Subsequently, on May 9, 1892, the bid of Ashland, which included twenty acres "in the most eligible and picturesque part of the city" and a subscription of $30,000, was accepted.

The building, which was dedicated in June of 1893 and completed in time for the opening of the fall term that year, was in many respects a copy of Scoville Hall of Beloit College. In addition to this architectural borrowing, the new academy received Beloit's assistance in various other ways. Indeed, a Beloit professor, A. W. Burr, was invited to be the first president of North Wisconsin Academy, but he excused himself, indicating that the climate might prove too much for Mrs. Burr. Thus that responsibility fell to the Reverend Edward P. Wheeler, one of the founders of the institution and minister of the local Congregational church. The building was named for Mr. Wheeler in 1907, one year after the academy had become a college.

Wheeler Hall is not only the Old Main of Northland College; it is also the recognized landmark of higher education throughout a large portion of the North Country. Important among the responsibilities of the Academy as recognized by its founders was its area of service, which was to include "northern Wisconsin and Michigan and North Eastern Minnesota... in which there is not a single high-grade high school. This regional mission has continued to be emphasized. As Northland's President M. J. Fenenga observed more than seventy years ago, "It is significant that this school was not named for a denomination or a man or a city, but for a region."