St. John's Northwestern Academy (SJNA) was founded in 1884 as St. John's Military Academy (SJMA) in Delafield, Wisconsin, by clergyman Sidney T. Smythe as a private, college preparatory school. In 1995, Northwestern Military and Naval Academy (NMNA) in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, merged with St. John's Military Academy to become St. John's Northwestern Military Academy on the Delafield campus. In 2020, a Leadership Academy was added, and the combined schools became St. John's Northwestern Academies, and in 2026 it was simplified to St. John's Northwestern (SJN). It is today a coed independent boarding and day school for boys and girls in grades 7–12.
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Historic buildings
St. John's Northwestern campus consists of a collection of historic buildings, many with towers and battlements in a style that suggests a medieval castle, with most of them arranged in a U around the drill field.
The school's oldest surviving building is the odd Shingle style Memorial Hall, designed by John A. Moller with its two caps and built in 1893 as a recreational building/gymnasium.
Next among the surviving buildings is DeKoven Hall, designed in Collegiate Gothic style by Thomas Van Alyea and built in 1906, a four-story barracks/administration building with octagonal towers at the corners and battlements topping the walls.
The dining hall and barracks Welles Hall was also added in 1906, designed by Van Alyea in a style similar to DeKoven Hall, but with a large square clock tower.
The Beacon is a fieldstone monument built in 1923. It holds an eternal light and displays quotes from St. John's founder.
Victory Memorial Chapel of St. John Divine was built from 1921 to 1926, modeled by Van Alyea on the chapel at West Point, and clad in lannonstone.
In 1927 the school added the two-story Hazelwood Hall designed by Van Alyea, housing barracks and classrooms, and it was expanded with Scott Johnston Hall in 1930, with a corner turret.
Smythe Hall was added in 1929, a dormitory designed by Van Alyea in a "castle" style like the previous buildings.
In 1977 these historic campus buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places for the complementary design of many of them and since the school is the oldest military academy in Wisconsin.
Notable faculty
William A. Shunk – professor of military science and tactics from 1904 to 1908
Notable alumni
Ehab Amin — basketball player
Harold Huntley Bassett — United States Air Force major general
Ralph Barnes — journalist
Ed Bearss — United States Marine Corps veteran
Roman R. Blenski — Wisconsin state politician
Arthur S. Born (SJMA, 1923) — United States Navy rear admiral
Charles F. Born (SJMA, 1924) — United States Air Force major general
Eliot Bostar — member of the Nebraska Legislature
Martin Breunig — basketball player
Donald Clough Cameron — writer of detective novels and comic books
Jack Carson — actor
Theodore Case — chemist, physicist, inventor of the Movietone sound system
Ahmad Caver (born 1996) — basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League who played for the Memphis Hustle
John M. Cavey — Wisconsin state politician
Tom T. Chamales (SJMA, 1942) — writer and veteran of U.S. Army's Merrill's Marauders
Edward A. Craig (SJMA 1917) — U.S. Marine Corps officer who commanded combat units during World War II and the Korean War
In popular culture
The school was depicted in the Oscar-winning film Apollo 13, with scenes showing a young Jay Lovell, portrayed by Max Elliott Slade, as a cadet in a classroom watching broadcasts of his father – Jim Lovell – attempt to survive during the famed failed moon landing. While the young Lovell did watch the broadcasts including the splashdown, in reality he watched from the home of the St. John's commandant, not in the classroom surrounded by peers as depicted in the film.