Kemper Center had its beginning in 1861, as the private home of United States Senator
Charles Durkee. In 1865, Senator Durkee's home became a boarding school for young
women. The Episcopal girls' school became Kemper Hall in 1871, in memory of Bishop
Jackson Kemper, the First Missionary Bishop for the Northwest Territory of the
American Episcopal Church. When the Episcopal Sisters of St. Mary assumed the
leadership of the school in 1878, Kemper Hall also became the Mother House for the
Western Province of the order, which at the time extended to the Pacific Ocean.
Kemper Center Inc., was established as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit corporation in order to purchase the property
on a land contract until additional funding could be secured. The preservers of
Kemper raised $150,000, which was matched by a federal Land and Water
Conservation (LAWCON) grant to purchase the property from the Sisters of St. Mary.
Kemper Center was then given to Kenosha County, and it became Kenosha's seventh
County Park.
When Kenosha County agreed to accept the gift of Kemper Center, Janet
Lance Anderson, a 1910 Kemper Hall graduate, deeded her home, adjacent to the Kemper
property, to Kenosha County. The Anderson residence functionally became part of
Kemper Center after Mrs. Anderson's death in 1989, and in 1992 opened as the
Anderson Arts Center.
