THEN AND NOW
The physical face of MUHS The facilities and facades of Marquette University High School have evolved over 160 years, but the institution has stood for excellence in education since its founding as a small parish school. The first incarnation of Marquette University High School was St. Aloysius Academy, the St. Gall’s parish school located at 3rd Street and Sycamore Street—now Michigan Avenue and near the current location of the WE Energies corporate offices and Zeidler Park. The school opened in 1856 at the direction of Milwaukee’s first Catholic bishop, the Rev. John Henni, who admired the Jesuit institutions he’d seen around the world. In 1881, the Jesuits built St. Gall’s Academy atop a hill at 10th and State streets (now home to the Southeastern Wisconsin Detention facility). With a combined high school and college seven-year program, the school, later named Marquette Academy, opened with 35 students; by the end of the year, enrollment had more than doubled. In 1907, upon the completion of Johnston Hall on 12th and Grand (now Wisconsin) Avenue, the college departments were transferred there and Marquette Academy became dedicated to educating high school-age young men. In 1922, the school was rechristened Marquette University High School, and three years later, the building reverted back to the university and was used for a variety of purposes, including at one time, the dental school. The current home of Marquette High at 35th Street and Wisconsin Avenue opened in 1925 and is dedicated to Ellen Story Johnston, who provided the lead gift for the newly constructed school. The main entrance moved from Wisconsin Avenue to the south side of the building when the Gordon Henke Center was completed in 1994 as part of the AMDG Campaign under the direction of Rev. George Winzenburg, SJ, ’63. The entrance has been slightly modified in the last ten years to accommodate the Continue the Mission and Companions on the Journey building projects. Even as the physical doorway to a Milwaukee Jesuit high school education has changed over the past century-and-a-half, the commitment in our city to Jesuit principles has not wavered—proving Henni’s hunch that the region was ripe for Jesuit institutions.
56 MUHS Magazine
Top: A sketch of St. Aloysius Academy, a precursor to MUHS. Middle: Marquette Academy, located at 10th and State streets, on the “hilltop” led to Marquette High’s nickname, the Hilltoppers. Bottom: Marquette University High School in 1930. Opposite: The new walkway up to the Gordon Henke Center entrance doors includes three inlaid, 18“ x 18” bronze plaques featuring phrases central to Jesuit education— Cura Personalis (care for the person), Magis (more), and Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (For the Greater Glory of God). Photo by Mike Arndt.