Old Missoula

Oldest School Still Occupying Original Site Is Sacred Heart Academy for Girls

Missoula’s oldest school still on the original site where it was started is Sacred Heart Academy, Catholic school for girls founded in 1873 by the Sisters of Charity of Providence.

Growing from what was known at the start as Providence of the Sacred Heart, a combined charitable institution with what today is St. Patrick Hospital, are the academy, Loyola High School and St. Francis Xavier Parochial School.

Until the 1920s when St. Anthony Parochial School was started on the South Side for the education of grade school age Catholic children south of the Clark Fork River, the schools at the original site carried the entire load for Catholic youths.

Mother Caron, superior general of the Sisters of Charity of Providence, on her official visit to the school and hospital for Indians at St. Ignatius in 1873 learned from the Rev. Lawrence Benedict Palladino, S. J., of the promising community of Missoula. She consulted Father Giorda, superior of the missions, who approved establishment of the branch in Missoula.

On April 18, 1873 the sisters, accompanied by Father Palladino, came to Missoula from St. Ignatius Mission. A two-and-one-half block site at the west end of the townsite was purchased and the combination school-hospital was under way.

A building which had been used as a courthouse, schoolhouse and most recently as a chicken roost, was already on the site. The early sisters, Mary Edward, Mary Victor and Mary Julian, had a tremendous task at hand, making a school and hospital from a spider-web-cluttered chicken coop, but they got the job done.

Ditch Constructed

At first water had to be carried several hundred yards from the Clark Fork River, but a good-hearted early settler dug a ditch about a mile long from Rattlesnake Creek to bring water to the convent door. The sisters had to get up early to draw their water from it, however, because domestic animals wandering the area had a habit of quenching their thirst and wallowing in it during the day.

Early accounts tell of the sharp Montana winters of the 1870s which forced the sisters to sweep snowdrifts from inside as well as outside of the door before they could open it. Their pioneer day menu generally consisted of bread, salt pork and tea, served in tin cups and plates.

They lived at first from hand to mouth, dependent on assistance from St. Ignatius Mission, alms of early Missoula residents and a slender income from the board of patients and care of children.

Miners, Farmers Help

Because of the shortage of funds the sisters asked the assistance of the public at large, mostly miners and farmers at that time, touring the mining camps and farms on horseback and in crude conveyances.

It was from the donations of these early residents, still few and far between in the late 1800s, that the sisters began to save for future construction.

The first pupils at the academy were two orphans, and pupils were admitted as resident and day students in 1874. In five years enrollment had grown from five to 45.

First Brick Structure

Annexes to the original structure were added as the enrollment grew and in 1885 a new four-story brick structure, which now houses the chapel, was dedicated.

Marcus Daly, mining magnate of Butte, told Mother Mary Julian, provincial superior of the Sisters of Providence at that time, he would provide the wood necessary for the building, no matter how large. His offer and a collection taken up in the mines of Butte aided in financing this structure.

This structure was soon outgrown and the present building facing Owen street at Pine was erected in 1900. The first high school graduates were Electa Amairiaux and Margaret Maley in 1894.

Loyola in 1912

St. Francis Xavier Parochial School was constructed on Spruce street, between Owen and Harris streets, in 1929. Loyola High School for Catholic boys was formally opened in 1912.

It was closed for the 1918-19 year because of an influenza epidemic, then was operated until 1932 when it was closed because of the depression. It was reopened again in 1952 with only a freshman class, having all four classes again for the first time in the 1955-56 school year. First graduate of the school was the Rev. William Elliott, S. J.