Pio Nono College (Wisconsin)

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The Catholic Normal School and Pio Nono College, also called Holy Family Normal School, were two parts of a single paired school in St. Francis, Wisconsin. They shared the same faculty and were founded in 1870 by Rev. Dr. Joseph Salzmann. The Normal School trained young men to become teachers in music, while Pio Nono was a business college.

In 1922, the Normal School/College department was dissolved, and Pio Nono became a Catholic boarding and day high school for boys in grades 9–12. The school later merged with Don Bosco High School in 1972 to form St. Thomas More High School, which used the former Pio Nono building.

Salzmann had the idea for the institution as early as 1864 and laid the cornerstone on June 12, 1870. The school was named after Pope Pius IX. The music program grew under head of music Johann Baptist Singenberger, who arrived in 1873 and helped Pio Nono become a leading center of Catholic church music in the United States.

Salzmann Hall was built in 1931 to accommodate more students and remains part of St. Thomas More High School today. In 1941, Pio Nono became St. Francis Minor Seminary, a place for four years of high school and two years of college, serving both day and boarding students. It continued at the Pio Nono site until De Sales Preparatory Seminary opened in 1963.

Pio Nono reopened in 1965 in the old seminary building, starting with a freshman class of 100 and adding a new class each year. The first senior class graduated in 1969, but the revival was short. Due to declining enrollment in Catholic high schools on Milwaukee’s south side, Pio Nono merged with Don Bosco High School in 1972 to form St. Thomas More High School, in the building that had housed Pio Nono.

St. John’s School for the Deaf began as part of Pio Nono in 1876, with 17 students meeting on the gym’s second floor. A separate building was completed in 1879. From 1889 to 1895 it operated as the coeducational St. John’s Institute for Deaf Mutes, and in 1895 it became an independent school.