As demand for teachers in rural Wisconsin outpaced the capacity of state normal schools, the legislature began authorizing county normal schools in 1899, and by the 1920s thirty-two were operating. In the fall of 1908, classes jointly supported by Door and Kewaunee counties were held in Algoma, first in Algoma High School and then, from the fall of 1912, in a remodeled building at Fourth and Fremont streets. After a fire in December 1938, the present building was completed in November 1940. As state education laws changed, county normal schools adapted or closed, and by 1971 only four county colleges remained, including Door-Kewaunee County College, which closed by July 1972 when state support ended. For almost 75 years, county colleges provided inexpensive education for area residents, helped meet the educational needs of Wisconsin's rural communities, and offered local employment opportunities in area schools. Henry Diefenbach, born in Valmy, Wisconsin, on February 17, 1897, was the oldest child of Fred and Sophie Diefenbach and attended school in Sevastopol. He married Caroline Wilke in 1920, and they had four children, Marion, Alvera, Eunice, and Donald; the family lived on the Diefenbach farm until 1928, when they moved to 1012 Perry Street in Algoma. After Caroline died in 1933, he married Edna Wilke in 1934, and they had three children, Orland, Beverly, and Kenneth. Employed as an assistant superintendent at the Plumbers Woodwork Company in Algoma, he retired in 1942 because of ill health and entered Hickory Grove Tuberculosis Sanitarium, returning there again in 1943, 1950, and 1964. Suffering from diabetes and the loss of a lung, he made hats, bags, rugs, potholders, and embroidery while at the sanitarium, and between stays he did carpentry in his kitchen workshop, making bird houses, whirligigs, birdbaths, other garden ornaments, doll houses, and furniture for his family. From 1959 to 1965, he created outdoor cement structures to line his back yard, placing seven house and tower sculptures among the trees along the bank of Silver Creek. Made from cement, hand-made bricks, and beach stones, with additions including car headlights, metal parts, Sucryl bottles, and primers from shotgun shells, they included the "castle," then a lighthouse, a gristmill, a church, a beer bottle tower topped by a Pontiac Chieftain hood ornament, and finally a house and garage. After his death from a heart attack on May 26, 1967, his children Orland, Beverly, and Kenneth continued caring for the sculptures at the Perry Street house. In 2009, after building a new home north of Algoma, they moved the "castle" there but left the other six sculptures behind. In September 2011, Wil and Stephanie Wasson purchased the property and agreed to donate the remaining six sculptures to the City of Algoma. Volunteers and the Kohler Foundation removed them, and after repair and restoration by the Kohler Foundation, they were returned to Algoma in the summer of 2012.