Saint Joseph High School

1953 – present

The consolidation: Saint Joseph High School began classes on 20 September 1953, the first consolidated, co-institutional Catholic high school in the South Bend area — one school, boys and girls in separate departments, gathered out of the parish high schools it replaced. The Brothers of Holy Cross preserve the merger's arithmetic in a certificate kept at the old site: the new school was the result of the merger of three schools, South Bend Central Catholic, Saint Joseph's Academy, and South Bend Catholic, which had itself absorbed Saint Hedwig's High School. The school was built under Bishop John Francis Noll, with Monsignor John Sabo chairing the building committee, on contributions from the parishes of South Bend and Mishawaka, on 5.7 acres at 1441 North Michigan Street donated to the diocese by the Brothers of Holy Cross. Its first graduating class received diplomas in the spring of 1954.

The move of 2012: The Michigan Street building served fifty-nine years. In the summer of 2012 it was vacated and sold to the University of Notre Dame, and the school moved about a mile south into a new building at 453 North Notre Dame Avenue, on the site formerly occupied by Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center; the new building was dedicated on 25 August 2012, and with the move the school's name was standardized as Saint Joseph High School. Mayor Buttigieg, himself an alumnus, welcomed it at the dedication with the observation carried in the Central entry above: for the first time since Central closed, the city again had a high school downtown. The school stands open, the diocese's South Bend high school, enrolling about nine hundred students in the middle 2010s — 902 in 2016–17.

Sources:

1. Brothers of Holy Cross, Midwest Province newsletter, 21 September 2016 — the certificate at the old site: the 1953 opening at 1441 North Michigan Street, the three-school merger and the absorbed Saint Hedwig's, the first class of 1954, the vacation and sale of 2012 and the August 2012 dedication.
2. Today's Catholic (diocesan newspaper), 4 September 2012 — the dedication of 25 August 2012 at 453 North Notre Dame Avenue, the fifty-nine years at Angela and North Michigan, and Principal Susan Richter's and Mayor Buttigieg's remarks.
3. The school's standard reference record — classes begun 20 September 1953, Bishop Noll and Monsignor Sabo, the parishioners' contributions and the Brothers' donated 5.7 acres, the 2012 building on the medical center site and the standardized name, and enrollment of 902 in 2016–17.
4. The History of St Joseph High School, the school's student publication (Saint Joseph Square) — the 1953 founding and the building campaign of 2010–2011 that funded the move.