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A Brief History of Lasallian Education in the Midwest District
David L. Hotek
The St. Louis Area
The first attempt to establish Lasallian education in the Mississippi Valley of the United States occurred in the year 1819 at St. Genevieve, Missouri. This establishment, St. Genevieve Academy, lasted only three years and ended with the separation of the Brothers. Twenty three years later, negotiations for the services of the Christian Brothers in St. Louis were begun through the aid of Father John Timon, Provincial of the Vincentians. He went to Montreal to ask Brother Aidant, Provincial of the Brothers in Canada and the United States, for six Brothers to teach in St. Louis. At that time there were only 25 Brothers in Montreal teaching about 1,800 students and therefore Brother Aidant was unable to send any Brothers to St. Louis. This did not stop Father Timon. In 1845 he went to France to request of Brother Philip, Superior General, that he send Brothers to teach in St. Louis. Brother Philip promised to send five Brothers, but due to the inability to secure enough money for their transportation to the United States, the brothers’ arrival was delayed. It was not until 1848 that Bishop Kenrick, Bishop of St. Louis, met with Brother Facile, the new Provincial of the District of Canada/United States, and persuaded him to send Brothers to St. Louis. Three Brothers were sent: Brothers Gelisaire, Peter and Dorothy. On August 28, 1849 these Brothers arrived in St. Louis and on September 11, 1849 they began teaching class in the residence just west of the old Cathedral.
New members started to join the Brothers at the Cathedral school. By March of 1850 six postulants were invested into the order and immediately began teaching. By May of the same year they were assigned to teach at St. Francis Xavier school, the grammar school associated with the Jesuit parish. From their small stipends the Brothers not only had to support themselves but their novices as well. To supplement their income a short-lived tuition paying boarding school, St. Joseph Academy, was opened on the corner of Sixteenth and Market Streets. In 1851 the Brothers began teaching the older boys in St. Vincent de Paul parish on the corner of Ninth and Park Streets. In the same year the Brothers opened a school in St. Patrick’s parish, an English-speaking parish for people of Irish descent. It was located at Sixth and Biddle Streets. In 1858 the Brothers entered into another field of labor. Since 1843 the diocesan seminary had been conducted in an old building at Carondelet. When the seminary was discontinued the Christian Brothers took charge of fifty orphan boys, housed in this seminary building. For the first few years it was merely an orphanage but in 1864 the name was changed to LaSalle Institute, Reformatory for Boys. In the same year that the orphanage was opened, the Brothers also took charge of Sts. Mary and Joseph Boy’s School in Carondelet. This school was located on Third Street near Illinois.
At the end of this first decade it was apparent that the work of the original three Brothers at the Cathedral school had witnessed a healthy expansion. The Brothers were now teaching in the Cathedral school (1849-1870), St. Francis Xavier (1850-1854), St. Joseph’s Academy (1850-1855), the boys school at St. Vincent’s (1851-1911), St. Patrick’s (1851-1883), LaSalle Orphanage and Reformatory (1858-1868), Sts. Mary and Joseph (1858-1888), and Christian Brothers College (1851-1916). They were also conducting a Novitiate which was filled with prospective Brothers (1849-1861; 1867-1886). In the years that followed the Brothers taught in the following schools in the St. Louis area: St. John the Evangelist (1862-1892), St. Lawrence O’Toole (1863-1900), St. Peter and Paul (1866-1870), Annunciation (1868-1893), St. Bridget’s (1868-1911), St. Patrick Academy (1869-1884), St. Michael’s (1870-1872), The Protectory in Glencoe, Missouri (1871-1884), St. Malachy’s (1872-1877; 1879-1911), and St. Alphonsus, AKA “The Rock Church,” (1900-1925). Three schools were also opened in Ohio: Cathedral Parochial (1860-1863) in Cincinnati, St. Francis de Sales (1891-1904) in Toledo and St. Malachy’s Parochial (1893-1913) in Cleveland. These schools were all grade schools. Throughout the history of the St. Louis area the Brothers and Lasallian colleagues have taught in the following high schools: Christian Brothers College (St. Louis, MO), Christian Brothers High School (St. Joseph, MO), Christian Brothers High School (Memphis, TN), De La Salle High School (Kansas City, MO), St. John’s Osage Nation Indian School (Gray Horse, OK), South Side Catholic High School/St. Mary’s (St. Louis, MO), Price College High School (Amarillo, TX), Father Flanagan’s Boy’s Town (Boy’s Town, NE), St. Peter’s High School/Helias High School (Jefferson City, MO), Central Catholic High School (Vincennes, IN), Christian Brothers High School (Quincy, IL), Bishop Kelley High School (Tulsa, OK), LaSalle High School (Cincinnati, OH), Newport Catholic High School (Newport, KY), Notre Dame High School (Wichita, KS), Bergan High School (Peoria, IL), Rummel High School (Omaha, NE), O’Hara High School (Kansas City, MO), Providence High School (St. Louis, MO), Costa High School (Galesburg, IL) and St. Mary’s High School (Paducah, KY). In higher education, the Brothers and Lasallian educators teach at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, TN.
The Chicago Area
The Brothers began their work in what is today the Chicago area in 1855 at St. Anne’s School in Kankakee, Illinois. They remained at St. Anne’s for only three years. Their work began in Chicago amid the echoes of the Civil War. Their first mission was St. Patrick’s Church at Adams and Desplaines Streets. Beside the church stood a modest frame building, remodeled into a school by the Holy Cross Brothers from 1856-1861. To replace the Holy Cross Brothers the Christian Brothers arrived in September of 1861. By 1871, when the great Chicago fire swept through the city, St. Patrick’s had grown to an enrollment of about 300 students. Though the fire actually started only six blocks from the school, St. Patrick’s Academy escaped destruction. School was interrupted, however, as the Brothers played an important role in the relief of the stricken city. The Brothers acted as distributors of food and clothing and worked to relieve the distress of the citizens. When school resumed on January 2, 1872 the Academy enrolled 430 students. With the increase in enrollment a new school needed to be constructed. A three story brick building, and at the time the tallest structure west of the Chicago river, was begun in 1874.
A Parochial School was opened in Ottawa, Illinois in 1865. It remained open until 1869 when the Brothers withdrew.
St. Patrick’s Academy, being the first of the brothers’ schools in Chicago, was followed by St. Bridget’s Orphanage (1863-1882). This orphanage was located on Archer Avenue in St. Bridget’s parish in Bridgeport. The Brothers also taught in St. Bridget’s School from 1873 to 1880. St. Mary’s School (1867-1871), located at Madison and Wabash Avenues, associated with Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, was opened in 1867 as was Christian Brothers Academy (1867-1871), located at Van Buren and 4th St. There was a school opened in the parish of Holy Name (Cathedral School 1869-1871) of which there is little detail recorded. St. John’s School (1870-1871; 1875-1893)) located on Clark Street, was opened by the Brothers in 1870. All four of these schools, St. Mary’s, Christian Brothers Academy, Holy Name and St. Johns’, were destroyed by the great Chicago fire of 1871. The Brothers returned to St. John’s in 1877 and a community was opened on Butterfield Street. The others schools did not reopen. A grade school, St. Mary’s (1871-1876) was opened in Peoria, IL with some of the Brothers who were displaced by the Chicago fire. The other Brothers were sent to St. Paul, MN and Memphis, TN.
Throughout the Chicago area the Brothers began a number of high schools. St. Patrick’s Academy, when it reopened in January of 1872, consisted of 110 high school students and 320 grade school students. This was the first of the high schools to be operated by the Christian Brothers. A second high school, St. Patrick’s High School, was opened in LaSalle, IL. This school existed from 1862-1876. When the population began to shift to the south side of Chicago, a new school was opened at 35th Street and Wabash Avenue. This school, De La Salle Institute, opened in 1889. The west side of Chicago was home to St. Mel High School, opened in 1918. St. Mel, located at Madison and Kildare Streets, was at one time the largest of the Christian Brother schools in Chicago. In 1918 the Brothers also began teaching in Joliet, Illinois. A new school, De La Salle High School, was built in 1927. In the years following the depression, the Brothers were not able to continue and were replaced on the faculty by the Carmelite Fathers. Prior to 1927 no Catholic high school for boys existed between the northern limits of Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. St. George High School was opened to meet this need. Classes began in 1927 and continued until 1969. In 1930, Bishop Edward F. Hoban of Rockford, Illinois invited the Brothers to take charge of a small high school of 126 students. The Brothers ministered in this school, St. Thomas, for only three years (1930-1933).
The Brothers and Lasallian colleagues have also taught in the following high schools in what is now the Chicago area: St. Mary’s Training School (Feehanville, IL), St. Francis High School (Wheaton, IL), St. Joseph High School (Westchester, IL), Bishop Noll Institute (Hammond, IN), Roncalli High School (Aurora, IL), Providence High School (New Lenox, IL), Bishop Gallagher High School (Harper Woods, MI), Monsignor O’Rafferty High School (Lansing, MI), Monsignor Gabriel High School (Lansing, MI), St. Paul High School (Chicago, IL), Central Catholic High School (Muskegon, MI), Montini Catholic High School (Lombard, IL) and Driscoll Catholic High School (Addison, IL). In higher education the Brothers and Lasallian educators teach at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL.
The St. Paul and Minneapolis Area
A school was one of the first undertakings of Bishop Cretin when he arrived in St. Paul, MN in the year 1851 to assume charge of the diocese. Cretin’s school was squeezed into half of the basement of a three story brick structure which served also as cathedral, rectory and episcopal palace. After the Civil War, Father Ireland, the new rector of the cathedral, having heard of the reputation of the Christian Brothers in both Chicago and St. Louis, asked to have the Brothers assume the direction of the school. It was not until 1871, after the Chicago fire had destroyed many of the Brothers schools, that the Brothers were able to come to St. Paul. Brothers Jucondian and Porphyrus arrived in St. Paul on All Soul’s Day, 1871 to take charge of the two classes that then made up the Cathedral School. By 1875 the Brothers were teaching in the Assumption Parish school (1875-1882) and in 1876 St. Mary’s school (1876-1891). In 1882, the last year in which the Brothers were active in the three parishes of St. Paul, their community numbered twelve members, while the combined student bodies totaled 668 boys. In 1889 Cathedral school became Cretin school, named after its founder, and a new structure was built to house the school. Today this school is known as Cretin-Derham Hall.
In 1889 the Brothers entered Minneapolis at the invitation of Father James McGolrick, who wished them to take charge of a school in the Immaculate Conception Parish of that city. Classes were started in September of that year in an abandoned orphanage at 6th Avenue North and 3rd Street. This mission only lasted for three years when the Brothers withdrew in 1891. On October 1, 1900 two classes were opened and fifty students were enrolled in a school called Hennepin Institute, located on Nicollet Island at West Island Avenue and Grove Street. The name was changed to De La Salle Institute in 1902. The first Director of Hennepin Institute was Brother Athanasius of Sabaste. He was assisted by Brother Lewis Ambrose and Brother Levian Benedict.
Other schools that were operated by the Christian Brothers in the late 19th and early 20th century were St. John’s College in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (1871-1879), St. Raphael’s School in Dubuque, Iowa (1879-1884), Cathedral High School in Duluth, Minnesota (1907-1942), Cotter High School in Winona, Minnesota (1911-1952), and Heffron High School in Rochester, Minnesota (1913-1925).
Other high schools where the Brothers and Lasallian colleagues have ministered include: Holy Name High School (Escanaba, MI), Pacelli High School (Stevens Point, WI), Benilde High School (St. Louis Park, MN), Hill/Hill Murray High School (St. Paul, MN), Lourdes High School (Oshkosh, WI), Xavier High School (Appleton, WI), LaSalle High School (Cedar Rapids, IA), Beckman High School (Dyersville, IA), Brady High School (West St. Paul, MN), Shanley High School (Fargo, ND), Grace/Totino-Grace High School (Fridley, MN), and Roncalli High School (Manitowoc, WI). In higher education the Brothers and Lasallian educators teach at St. Mary’s University in Winona, MN.
Lasallian Educational Apostolates in the
Midwest District
1819 - 1995
St. Genevieve Academy, St. Genevieve, MO Cathedral Male Free School, St. Louis
St. Francis Xavier Grade School, St. Louis
St. Joseph Academy (Boarding School), St. Louis
St. Vincent De Paul Grade School, St. Louis
St. Patrick Grade School, St. Louis
*Christian Brothers College/CBCHS, St. Louis
St. Anne’s Grade School, Kankakee, IL
La Salle Orphanage/Reformatory, Carondolet, MO
Sts. Mary and Joseph Grade School, St. Louis
Cathedral Parochial School, Cincinnati, OH
*St. Patrick, Chicago
St. John the Evangelist Grade School, St. Louis
St. Patrick Grade School, La Salle, IL
St. Lawrence O’Toole Grade School, St. Louis
St. Bridget’s Orphanage, Chicago
Parochial School for Boys, Ottawa, IL
Patee Town School, St. Joseph, MO
Sts. Peter and Paul Grade School, St. Louis
St. Mary’s Grade School, Chicago
Christian Brothers Academy, Chicago
Christian Brothers High School, St. Joseph, MO
Annunciation Grade School, St. Louis
St. Bridget’s Grade School, St. Louis
Holy Name Cathedral School, Chicago
St. Patrick Parochial, St. Joseph, MO
St. Patrick Academy, St. Louis
St. John’s Grade School, Chicago
St. Michael’s Grade School, St. Louis
St. Mary’s Grade School, Peoria, IL
*Cathedral School/Cretin/C-DH High School, St. Paul
St. John’s College, Prairie due Chien, WI
*Christian Brothers High School, Memphis, TN
*Christian Brothers College/University, Memphis, TN
The Protectory/St. Joseph Industrial, Glencoe, MO
St. Malachy’s Grade School, St. Louis
St. Bridget’s Grade School, Chicago
Assumption Grade School, St. Paul
St. John’s Grade School, Chicago
St. Mary’s Grade School, St. Paul
St. Raphael Grade School, Dubuque, IA
St. Malachy’s Grade School, St. Louis
St. Mary’s Training School, Feehanville, IL
St. Patrick School, Kansas City, MO
Immaculate Conception Grade School, Minneapolis
Cathedral Commercial, Kansas City, MO
*De La Salle Institute, Chicago
St. Francis de Sales School, Toledo, OH
St. Malachy’s Parochial School, Cleveland, OH
St. Alphonsus “The Rock” School, St. Louis
*Hennepin Institute/De La Salle High School, Minneapolis
Cathedral High School, Duluth, MN
St. John’s Osage Nation Indian School, Gray Horse, OK
De La Salle Military Academy, Kansas City, MO
Cotter High School, Winona, MN
Heffron High School, Rochester, MN
St. Mel/Provincence-St. Mel High School, Chicago
De La Salle High School, Joliet, IL
St. George High School, Evanston, IL
*Br. Domnan Lodge/Retreat Center, Beaver Island, MI
St. Thomas High School, Rockford, IL
South Side Catholic High School/St. Mary’s, St. Louis
*St. Mary’s College/University, Winona, MN
Price College High School, Amarillo, TX
Father Flanagan’s Boy’s Town, Boy’s Town, NE
*St. Mary’s Press, Winona, MN
*St. Peter’s/Helias High School, Jefferson City, MO
Central Catholic High School, Vincennes, IN
Holy Name High School, Escanaba, MI
*Pacelli High School, Stevens Point, WI
Benilde/Benilde St. Margaret H.S., St. Louis Park, MN
La Salle Procure, Chicago
St. Francis High School, Wheaton, IL
*La Salle Manor Retreat Center, Plano, IL
Christian Brothers High School, Quincy, IL
Hill/Hill-Murray High School, St. Paul
Lourdes High School, Oshkosh, WI
Xavier High School, Appleton, WI
*St. Joseph High School, Westchester, IL
*Bishop Kelley High School, Tulsa, OK
*La Salle High School, Cincinnati, OH
*Lewis College/University, Romeoville, IL
Bishop Noll Institute, Hammond, IN
Roncalli/A.C.C. High School, Aurora, IL
Providence High School, New Lenox, IL
Newport Catholic High School, Newport, KY
Notre Dame/Bishop Carroll High School, Wichita, KS
Bishop Gallagher High School, Harper Woods, MI
Monsignor O’Rafferty High School, Lansing, MI
Monsignor Gabriel/L.C.C. High School, Lansing, MI
Bergan High School, Peoria, IL
La Salle High School, Cedar Rapids, IA
Vaugirard Retreat Center, Cedar Hill, MO
Rummel/Roncalli High School, Omaha, NE
Brady High School, West St. Paul, MN
Shanley High School, Fargo, MD
*Christian Brothers Data Center, Romeoville, IL
*Christian Brothers Retreat Center, Dunrovin, MN
*Grace/Totino-Grace High School, Fridley, MN
*Roncalli High School, Manitowoc, WI
Central Catholic High School, Muskegon, MI
*O’Hara High School, Kansas City, MO
Providence High School, St. Louis, MO
St. Paul High School, Chicago
*Montini Catholic High School, Lombard, IL
*Driscoll Catholic High School, Addison, IL
Beckman High School, Dyersville, IA
Costa High School, Galesburg, IL
St. Mary’s High School, Paducah, KY
Darrow Outreach Program, Cedar Hill, MO
C.B. Counseling Center, Westchester, IL
*La Salle Center, Menasha, WI
*St. Joseph High School, Greenville, MS
*Su Casa Catholic Worker, Chicago
*Tolton Adult Education Center, Chicago | [1819 - 1822]
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[1850 - 1854]
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[1907 - 1942]
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The following schools belonged for brief periods to the St. Louis District. Those in Louisiana, Texas, and Florida formed their own district from 1851-1875 when, in 1875, yellow fever and other trials caused them to be united with St. Louis District. Those in New Mexico formed a district from 1867-1880, when in 1880, they were united to St. Louis. The personnel of all three districts were interchanged freely. The district of New Orleans - Santa Fe was established in 1921.
St. Mary’s Free School/Academy, New Orleans, LA
Our Lady of the Gulf School, Bay St. Louis, MS
St. Patrick Free School, New Orleans, LA
St. John the Baptist, New Orleans, LA
Cathedral School, St. Augustine, FL
St. Joseph’s School, New Orleans, LA
*St. Michael’s College/College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
St. Vincent’s School, (Jefferson City) New Orleans, LA
St. Mary’s School, Galveston, TX
School for Whites (added Blacks), Baton Rouge, LA
Pass Christian College, Pass Christian, MS
St. Mary’s College, Mora, NM
Brothers’ School, Taos, NM
St. Joseph’s School, New Orleans, LA
Precinct No. 4 (public school), Santa Fe, NM
Oblate Mission, Brownsville, TX
St. Patrick Free School, New Orleans, LA
St. Teresa’s School, New Orleans, LA
St. Nicholas School (public school) Bernalillo, NM
Agua Fria School, Santa Fe, NM
Cathedral School, Mobile, AL
St. John the Baptist, New Orleans, LA
St. Mary’s College, New Orleans, LA
St. Joseph’s School, New Orleans, LA
La Salle Institute, Las Vegas, NM | [1851 - 1875]
[1852 - 1854]
[1858 - 1867]
[1859 - 1871]
[1859 - 1862]
[1859 - 1862]
[1859 -
[1860 - 1875]
[1861 - 1867]
[1864 - 1871]
[1865 - 1876]
[1865 - 1884]
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[1869 - 1870]
[1870 - 1875]
[1870 - 1875]
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[1872 - 1873]
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[1878 - 1880]
[1880 - 1883]
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[1888 - 1926] |
(*) Indicates a Lasallian apostolate - 1995.
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