Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
ST. COLUMBKILLE HIGH SCHOOL
ST. COLUMBKILLE HIGH SCHOOL. The successor to ST. VINCENT'S ACADEMY established by the Sisters of the Presentation, the high school preceded the founding of St. Columbkille's parish by eight years. The area was then considered part of the ST. RAPHAEL'S CATHEDRAL parish.
The school was accredited in 1917. Beginning in 1929, under the leadership of Rev. James J. O'Brien, several significant changes were made in the parish. Father O'Brien established one of the first parish kindergartens in Dubuque with an initial enrollment of twenty-eight students. In 1930 the parish purchased the school and surrounding property from the Sisters for $35,000. The school, renamed St. Columbkille's, was opened free of tuition on September 30, 1930 and made co-ed. The enrollment soon doubled, and an additional $23,992 was spent the same year in remodeling. This proved sufficient until 1957 when enrollment reached eight hundred.
Plans were made as early as 1951 for the construction of a new grade school. A parish campaign in 1954 raised $300,000 for the project that began on May 28, 1956. The new school was dedicated by Archbishop Leo BINZ on November 22, 1957.
The opening of WAHLERT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL led to the transfer of the last three classes of students from St. Columbkille's High School in 1959. The building was then remodeled by May 22, 1962, as a junior high school. St. Columbkille's parish donated 8.4 percent, a total of $295,000, toward the $3,500,000 construction costs of the new high school.
In 2009 the building was owned by St. Columbkille Parish.