Benilde-St. Margaret's School Revenue and Competitors

The history of Benilde-St. Margaret's begins with the founding, in 1907, of St. Margaret's Academy by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The campus for this all-girls school, located near the Basilica of St. Mary in downtown Minneapolis, included two mansions and a carriage house that had been built in the 1880s by two Minneapolis business magnates. Part of the charm of this school was its buildings filled with winding staircases, a ballroom, and a fireplace in every classroom. By 1959 the old school became inadequate in size—for every 100 girls accepted, about 200 were turned away. The Sisters of St. Joseph, who had anticipated such a problem, had purchased twenty-eight acres, and by 1960 a new school was built on Upton Avenue, near the Eloise Butler Wildflower Gardens and Wirth Park.