On this day in 1926, ground was broken for the construction of St. Joseph's College on the University of Alberta campus.
The official sod-turning for the new Catholic college was held as part of the university's convocation celebrations. But plans for the college had been in the works for a while, based on the efforts of the Archbishop of Edmonton, John Joseph O'Leary. Catholic schools had been a part of education in Alberta since the 1880s, but O'Leary wanted to see that expanded into post-secondary education.
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That fit well with the vision of Henry Marshall Tory, the first president of the U of A. Tory, a Methodist minister himself, wanted to keep the institution non-denominational, but he was willing to offer land on campus to denominational colleges. A deal was struck, and construction began in 1926.
When the college was opened to students in 1927, it included classrooms, a dining hall, a chapel, and a notoriously crowded men's dorm for about 70 students. In addition to other subjects, the college would teach Catholic ethics and philosophy. While the red-brick building, guarded by mature trees, is one of the most recognizable places on campus, it wasn't always easy to keep it warm. The chapel in particular was known to be quite cold, leading students to attend mass in toques and gloves.
Although it is a separate college on campus, St. Joseph's has shared its space over the years. In the 1930s, the college offered some of its classrooms to the U of A's growing School of Education. St. Joe's students and the young teachers would get together at "Little Tuck," one of two coffee rooms. And they got along well — apparently, the celebrations at the Little Tuck became so wild that the college received a letter from the Pope's office requesting that it stop the "cabaret."
In the 1940s, St. Joseph's had another kind of visitor: pilots. The Royal Canadian Air Force took over the dorms during the Second World War, packing 140 people into the residences that had been considered crowded at half that number.
Kateri House, a women's residence, was added to the college, with space for just 14 at first; it was expanded in 2015 to accommodate up to 284. As is the case for the classes taught at St. Joseph's, the dorms are open to all U of A students, regardless of whether they are Catholic.
The ground was broken for St. Joseph's on convocation day 100 years ago, and we are on the cusp of another spring convocation season at the U of A. The ceremony no longer takes place at Convocation Hall, but that building has been in the news lately as the university pursues its plan to remove the Casavant organ over the objections of many music lovers and history buffs. The U of A has retained the services of Robert Summerby-Murray, a pipe organ consultant and past president of Saint Mary's University, to "help find a new and appropriate home for the organ."
This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.