Saint Louis School Reaches its 175th Anniversary

While it may not be the oldest in the islands, Saint Louis School can lay claim to being the most well-traveled and often-named one.

By David Choo, guest contributor

Saint Louis School, founded in 1846 as the College of Ahuimanu, was built on property on the Windward side of O‘ahu that was granted by King Kamehameha III to the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. One of the school’s most notable students was Jozef de Veuster, a 24-year old Belgian who arrived in Hawai‘i in March of 1864 determined to become a priest. Jozef would spend only a few months at the college, ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu in May of that year and known thereafter as Father Damien.

In 1881, the school moved to downtown Honolulu’s Beretania Street in a lot adjoining Washington Place. It was renamed the College of Saint Louis after France’s King Louis IX, who died leading his second crusade in the Middle East. Saint Louis had been the patron saint of the Hawai‘i’s bishop at the time.  However, just two years later, the collapse of a newly constructed building and the subsequent death of a student necessitated another move, this time to a site at the edge of downtown along Nu‘uanu Stream and fronting a street that would later be named College Walk. The school, now run by brothers from the Society of Mary, also known as Marianists, also got another name change, this time to the College of A‘ala.

In 1914, the school added a high school and soon began to outgrow its downtown location. In 1923, the Marianists purchased 205 acres in Kaimukī in a mountainous area called Kalaepōhaku. Thirty-two acres were cleared for the campus and a bridge spanning Pālolo Stream was built to provide easy access the property. To finance the construction, school officials sold eighty nearby acres further up the mountain, which would eventually be subdivided into 400 residential lots. The development would later be named St. Louis Heights, with its first twelve streets named after teachers at the school.

The school’s first four buildings were completed in 1928. The fifth, the science building (now Newell Hall) opened a year later. The new school also had a new name, Saint Louis College.

The school would move once again, this time a temporary relocation as the result of war. On December 8, 1941, the U.S. Army commandeered the campus for the use as a field hospital for the coming conflict with the Japan in the Pacific. For a little more than four years, the school was home to the 147^th General Hospital, which treated more than 33,000 patients. During that time, most of the elementary school students attended classes at nearby St. Patrick’s School while high schoolers commuted to McKinley High School and split class time with the public school’s student body.  While the Class of 1946 had the distinction of graduating from a high school whose campus they never actually visited, the $90,000 annual lease payments enabled the school to pay off its original construction debt 13 years early.

In 1955, the Marianists established Saint Louis Junior College (later renamed Chaminade College in 1957 and Chaminade University of Honolulu in 1977) on the east end of campus, occupying three of the original five main campus buildings.  Since there was an actual college next door, the high school changed its name to Saint Louis High School, the school having dropped its elementary and intermediate grades in 1950.

In 1979, the school’s Board of Trustees decided to once again incorporate intermediate grades 7 and 8 into the curricular structure, which necessitated a fifth name change, this time to Saint Louis School. In 2016, grades 4 down to kindergarten were started, making Saint Louis School a K-12 educational institution for the first time in its history.

To share its appreciation of the school’s history with students, faculty and alumni, the school recently launched a year-long 175th anniversary campaign called “Ho’i i ka piko” – or “Return to the Source.”  The multi-media campaign includes a one-hour television special to air in May, along with TV and radio spots and in-person assemblies. No name changes are planned.

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The 175th anniversary of Saint Louis School will be recognized at the 2021 Preservation Honor Awards Virtual Ceremony on May 21, 2021. Click here for information about the event.

A proud Saint Louis graduate, David Choo is a former editor-at-large at PacificBasin Communications. Presently, he works at the State Office of the Auditor.