Between 1854 and 1857, many Catholics came to the United States from Germany and settled in central Minnesota at Saint Cloud and in the Sauk Valley, where the Benedictines met their religious and educational needs. The Benedictine Order and Rule had been established at Monte Cassino, Italy, in 529 and spread beyond. In the 1840s, Boniface Wimmer, a monk at the Abbey of Metten in Bavaria, promoted mission work in the United States, established a monastery in Pennsylvania where he became the first American Benedictine abbot, and subsequently became an important figure in the creation of Saint John's Abbey and University. In the 1850s, Benedicta Riepp, a nun from Saint Walburg Abbey in Eichstaff, Bavaria, spearheaded the movement of Benedictine sisters from Saint Marys, Pennsylvania, to central Minnesota, where they founded Saint Benedict's Monastery and eventually the College of St. Benedict. Both the Benedictine monks and the nuns of the Order of Saint Benedict, originally from Bavaria, arrived in the Saint Cloud area from Pennsylvania in the 1850s, and by the mid 1860s had moved to their present locations, the nuns to Saint Joseph and the monks to Collegeville. These institutions have preserved excellent late 19th and early 20th century buildings of historic integrity and importance, and Saint John's also preserves several buildings designed by internationally known architect Marcel Breuer, including the famous church. For nearly a century and a half, the Benedictines of Minnesota established high reputations through their many services to humanity, creating important academies, schools of higher education, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged, and missions extending beyond Minnesota to distant parts of the county and world. They were also pioneers in establishing public radio, the liturgical and ecumenical movements, pastoral work, educational publishing, arts and crafts, and the development of a world-renowned library.