Saint Louis School’s origins were in Temple Valley, 1846

Saint Louis School, by my records, is the fifth-oldest school in Hawaii after Lahainaluna (1831), Pohukaina (1832, now in Kahala), Royal (1939) and Punahou (1841).

When Saint Louis was opening 170 years ago, in 1846, California was just getting around to founding its first school, in Santa Clara. Before that, rich California families sent some of their children to Hawaii for an education.

Saint Louis began as the College of Ahuimanu in Temple Valley on the Windward side. Ahuimanu means “a flock of birds.” It was designed to serve the needs of the early Roman Catholic community in the kingdom.

Saint Damien lived there while preparing for ordination in the Roman Catholic priesthood, campus historian Brother Thomas Jalbert told me.

It was renamed the College of Saint Louis in 1881 when it moved downtown and took up residence at the end of Beretania Street on the Ewa bank of Nuuanu Stream.

Saint Louis was named for France’s King Louis IX, who died leading his second crusade (hence the name for the school’s teams, Crusaders). Saint Louis was the patron saint of the local Catholic bishop, Louis Maigret.

The school moved again to Kalaepohaku (“stone promontory”), which we now call Saint Louis Heights, in 1928. The hillside above the school was developed to raise cash to build the school, and many of the streets are named for brothers at the school and biblical figures.

The land was purchased in 1923, but a bridge had to be built over Palolo Stream, which created a large gulch, to allow access to the campus. Twelve hundred students and 51 brothers were present in the fall of 1928 when classes began.

Things changed for Saint Louis when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Eight months earlier the Army had arranged to use the campus as a hospital, should war break out. On Dec. 7, 1941, those fears became reality.

The $90,000 annual lease payment helped pay off Saint Louis’ debt from building the campus 13 years earlier.

On Dec. 8, 1941, the students packed up and hospital equipment moved in. Six surgical wards occupied Bertram Hall, and the science labs were turned into research and testing labs.

A hastily written sign announced it as “Provisional Hospital No. 2,” and six months later it was changed to “147th General Hospital.”

The younger students went to St. Patrick’s in Kaimuki. The older boys went to McKinley, where the school day was shortened to four hours in the afternoon. McKinley students attended for four hours in the morning.

When the Saint Louis Class of 1945 graduated, it had the unusual distinction of its students never attending their own high school campus.

The big event for the campus during the war was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s visit in 1944. His convertible Packard automobile circled the long driveway when he paid a visit to those wounded in the defense of our country.

During the war more than 33,000 patients were treated at the Saint Louis facility.

After the war, on Jan. 26, 1946, the hospital closed and the students returned. The Army presented a symbolic key to the facilities to Brother Leo Rausch at a school assembly.

To thank soldiers for their service, Congress passed the GI Bill, allowing them to attend college tuition-free. This prompted the Marianists who ran the school to found a junior college on the grounds, an idea that had first been proposed 17 years earlier in 1938.

In 1955 St. Louis Junior College opened with 30 young men in its inaugural class. Within two years] it became a four-year, coeducational intuition and changed its name to Chaminade College.

It honored Father William Joseph Chaminade, a priest who survived persecution during the French Revolution. In 1817 Chaminade founded the Society of Mary (Marianists) that ran the school.

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Other Hawaii schools became hospitals during the war as well. A part of Kamehameha Schools became Provisional Hospital No. 1. Farrington High was turned into a branch of Tripler General Hospital with 300 beds for medical care.

I was told that many babies were born at Farrington, Saint Louis and Kamehameha when they were hospitals. That might be mind-boggling for their current students!

Provisional Hospital No. 3 was located at Kuakini and set up to handle contagious diseases.

Punahou School was taken over by the Army Corps of Engineers, and the students moved to private homes in the area and the University of Hawaii. The Army paid Punahou $10,000 a month, which allowed the school to survive the war.

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Several of the schools I mentioned are celebrating important anniversaries this year. Lahainaluna, the oldest school west of the Rocky Mountains, is 185 years old. Punahou is 175. McKinley celebrated its 150th last year.

Saint Louis School will be 170 years old this year, while Chaminade University is celebrating its 60th anniversary.

Chaminade University’s vice president for institutional advancement, Diane Peters-Nguyen, said, “Our 60th celebrations include fulfilling our pledge to complete 60,000 hours of service among our students, faculty, staff and board members. We will also be having a capping event in September.”

Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@yahoo.com.