Chaminade College Preparatory School (Missouri) - History

History

Chaminade was founded by the Society of Mary in 1910, less than one hundred years after the school's namesake, Blessed Father William Joseph Chaminade, had founded the order, and only sixty years after the Marianists had established themselves in the United States. Originally it was a boarding and day school, with most of its students residing in the open dormitories that were located on the third and fourth floors of the main building; the priests and brothers of the Society of Mary resided in rooms on the north and south ends of each floor.

When the school opened in 1910, only one building, which later would be named "Chaminade Hall," existed on campus, besides the original farmhouse that existed when the land was purchased. In 1919, however, the school built a gymnasium north of the school building. The main building, the farmhouse, and the gymnasium, were for many years the only permanent structures on the campus until the 1950s, when the school built new dormitories for students, a new residence building for the members of the Marianist order, and a new chapel. These buildings were connected to the main building and the gymnasium by a network of underground tunnels that allowed the priests and brothers to move between buildings without going outside.

In 1970, the school constructed a new athletic facility named the Athletictron, and the school added the "West Wing" onto the back of Chaminade Hall in 1981. In 2002, the West Wing was expanded again, adding middle school classrooms, a cafeteria, and a new library. In 2011, construction was completed on the new Skip Viragh Center for the Arts.

The Rev. Ralph A. Siefert has been President of Chaminade since 1987. He is the longest serving President in the school's history. The one-thousand seat auditorium in the Skip Viragh Center for the Arts was named in his honor.