Built in 1856. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
From the record
“The First Kindergarten in Watertown, Wisconsin, is the building that housed the first kindergarten in the United States, opened in 1856. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 for its significance to the history of education.”
Wikipedia article First Kindergarten, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 52 National Register listings published here for Jefferson County · listed in 1972 · category: Building · built in 1856.
National Register reference number.72000055- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
19 since 2018
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 19 fires within 5 miles of First Kindergarten
between 2018 and 2020, burning about 8 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
9
Debris and open burning
7
Natural
2
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
6 workings within 5 miles of First Kindergarten: 4 unknowns, 1 producer, 1 past producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Watertown, the town this property stands in, in 47 storm reports between 1995 and 2026: 17 thunderstorm wind, 15 hail, 6 lightning, 5 flash flood.
The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Training thunderstorms produced 3 to 5 inches of rain in two hours or less across mainly the northern two-thirds of the county. Many roads were rendered impassable for a time due to the heavy downpours. Localized flooding of roads and some basements, with damage to contents, were reported by the county emergency manager in Waterloo, Watertown, Lake Mills, Jefferson, Ixonia and Johnson Creek. STH 19 was closed east of Watertown due to high water over the road. Some storm total rainfall reports include 5.45 inches at Palmyra; 4.97 inches in Milford; 4.70 inches at the National Weather Service office in Sullivan; and 4.59 inches in Waterloo.
Numerous trees and power lines were reported blown down by damaging thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 56 knots in a swath from 2 miles south of Watertown to Watertown. A tree fell on a home, with minimal damage reported by firefighters responding to the scene. The winds blew over a shed that damaged fencing, a viewing platform and a horse trailer at the Avalon Therapeutic Equestrian Center. Damage in the area totaled $50,000 dollars.
Three to five inches of rain fell with a severe thunderstorm complex that crossed southern Wisconsin. Many streets were flooded in Watertown where a measured 3.25 inches of rain fell in 4 hours. Law enforcement officials closed Industrial Road in Ixonia due to flooding. Water depths on some roads reached 1 to 3 feet. A few gravel shoulder washouts on country roads were reported.
The Jefferson County Emergency Manager reported trees and power lines were blown down in Watertown from damaging thunderstorm wind gusts that were estimated up to 60 mph (52 knots).
A tree two and one half feet in diameter blew down partially blocking the intersection of Highway 26 and Milwaukee Street in Watertown. Time estimated from radar.
A weak F0 tornado (40 to 45 mph) briefly spun up 3.4 miles southwest of Watertown and produced no damage. Specifically, it spun up about one-half mile west of STH 26 in the center of an area bounded by CTH Y, Ebenezer Rd., and High Rd.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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