St Xavier High School - X Ray Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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Below: St. Xavier Church and College, 1895. came a common figure walking the streets of the Queen City. Another plague occurred in 1849, far worse, which doubled the death toll. The students of Xavier feared for the survival of the school during this second panic. In a body the pupils and faculty vowed that if the school were spared, two crowns, one for the Blessed Virgin and the other for the Infant Jesus, would be fashioned and installed in the chapel. with proper ceremony. One student 11ed the City in panic and was not a part of the vows proceed- ings. Before he reached his home in Mexico he died of cholera. All the other students, without exception, were immune. At mid-century the city returned to its original prosperity although a shaky government strug- gled under riots and other setbacks. Xavier op- erated as a day school. At the encouragement of the schoolts president, Rev. Maurice Oakley, S.J., a new church was begun in 1860. This hrst ex- pansion was the largest, finest church the city had yet seen. It stands today as a landmark, hav- ing undergone only one disaster, a serious fire in 1869. The outbreak of the Civil War put Cincinnati in the perilous position of a border city. The citizens remained faithful to the Northern cause and the town was a mecca for escaping slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Cincinnatian deeply aEected by the trouble of the times, wrote her. Father James T. Daly, S.J. phenomenal Uncle T omts Cabin in 1867, short- ly after the civil scourge had subsided. And in that same year a secOnd addition to the Col- lege was erected on the southwest corner of Seventh and Sycamore: the Hill Building, named for Rev. Walter Hill, S.J. the president at the time. It was used to house the faculty. Two years later the College was granted a permanent char- ter. In 1885 another expansion, the Moeller Building, was built behind the Hill Building. This edifice now houses the school library and cafeteria. The final building of the campus was Father Francis J. Finn, S.J.

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erected in 1891, containing classrooms, the chap- el, and Memorial Hall. Xavier was growing. And so was Cincinnati. By 1875 a transit line had been established and four inclines had climbed the steep walls of the suburbs from the cityas basin. The population grew, new industries sprouted, among them Procter and Gamble. The period from the end of the Civil War until 1900 is sometimes called Cincinnatits Golden Age of Art. In keeping with the cityts widespread cultural reputation, theater and opera groups flourished, world-famous Rookwood Pottery was established, the Uni- versity of Cincinnati was granted a charter in 1870, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra gave its initial performance. Cincinnatits artistic heritage cannot be men- tioned without a word about the Tyler-Davidson Fountain. Designed in Bavaria by August von Kreiling, it was presented to the city by Henry Probasco in memory of his brother-in-law. There bars. The site was ready for the fountain in two hours. The forty-three foot monument was installed and is still the largest fountain in this country. And despite its reputation as a haven of pigeons and starlings and a peril to the Cincinnati drivers, it remains the City1s best-loved landmark. Yes, the Queen City was growing. Culture and industry nourished and the gay nineties added to the eifervescent spirit of the times. It was the age of the beer gardens, and the Pike Opera House. Everyone enjoyed himself; and before anyone was quite aware of it, the twentieth century had arrived and found Cincinnati a thriving metro- polis in a mushrooming nation. As an aid to students who lived out of the downtown area, Xavier opened a branch high school in Walnut Hills in 1906. This branch was abandoned in 1911, when classes were held in a new suburb annex, the buildings of the Avon- da1e Athletic Club, at Dana Avenue and Victory ttLeopold Stokowskits first rehearsal of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Music Hall. This, my hrst picture here, was made for The Commercial Tribune? Paul Briol, 1913. Rookwood Pottery. was something of a problem regarding the site where the gift should be put. The City Council decided on the market place between Vine and Walnut on Fifth Street. A roar of protest arose from the market people and they declared that, law or no law, they would not vacate. The Coun- cil dispatched a miniature army of workmen who swarmed over the market with axes and crow- Parkway. Finally, on September 10, 1919, the entire college moved to the Avondale location and the high school continued to operate in the downtown location. This is the arrangement which exists today. Two months after the college was established in its present location, Cincinnati was caught, along with the whole country, in a wave of de- 15