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AKA: St. Vincent's College #2, Los Angeles, CA
Structure Type: built works - public buildings - schools
Designers: [unspecified]
Dates: constructed 1866-1867
Overview
This two-story school building accommodated Saint Vincent's College, a combined high school and college for boys, between 1867 amd 1887. Organized in 1865, it became Los Angeles's first institution of higher learning, operated by the Vincentian Order of the Catholic Church.
Building History
Saint Vincent's College had three campus locations under the administration of the Vincentians. The first college was originally located in the Vicente Lugo Adobe on the Los Angeles Plaza opposite the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. In 1867, it moved to the second location, at 6th Street and Fort Street (later known as Broadway). The campus stretched from 7th Street to Hill Street.
A new, $100,000 campus was erected on Grand Avenue on the northwest corner of Washington Boulevard in 1886-1887, and the school made its transition from its second to its third home in the latter year.
After Saint Vincent's had vacated the second building, the building got another tenant. Sometime between 11/23/1888 and 09/01/1890, the US Army occupied the second Saint Vincent's College Campus, using the site for artillery training. It was under the command of Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles (1839-1925), commander of the Army's Military Division of the Pacific, Department of California. By 1893, Saint Vincent's Hall, under the proprietorship of Edward W. Jones, operated at the 6th Street location. (See Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1893, p. 723.)
Alteration
It appears that the original two-story building constructed in the mid-1860s was enlarged at some point to become three stories. (Either that, or it was razed and a larger, Second Empire building erected in its place.) Stylistically, the strupped down, two-floor original building had a Georgian appearance, with its cross-gabled roof. It was enlarged to three stories and dressed in Second Empire details later in its existence, during the 1870s or early 1880s. A new, two-story wing with a mansard-roofed tower was added at this later time.
PCAD id: 9849
