Gonzaga University

Founding

Gonzaga University was founded in 1887 by Sicilian-American Joseph Cataldo (1837–1928), who had come in 1865 as a Jesuit missionary to the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. In 1880, Cataldo built a schoolhouse about 10 to 12 mi (16 to 19 km) northeast of Spokane on the Peone Prairie, to serve children of the Upper Spokane Indians. Cataldo was concerned about the influence and expansion of Protestant schools on the region's native people, and by 1881 was discussing building a Jesuit college with other Jesuit leaders.

The Jesuits chose a location at Spokane Falls (later Spokane) due to its centrality in the Washington, Idaho and Montana region. The Jesuits purchased 320 acres of prime real estate in the city's central business district north of the Spokane River for $936. The Northern Pacific Railway was holding the land in reserve, but Cataldo was able to convince railroad executive John W. Sprague to allow the sale to build the school.

The City of Spokane offered to help pay to build the new college, on the condition that it be a whites only school, in spite of Cataldo's original purpose to educate the local native population. Cataldo's letters seeking the support of Church leadership in Rome warned that Methodists and other Protestants were building schools and that the city funding could go to them if the school was not built soon enough.

Inaugural class

Construction was delayed until 1886, and the school opened in 1887 with Father James Rebmann serving as the first Father Superior and seven boys enrolled. They were taught by 17 faculty, made up of Jesuit priests and Jesuits in training, scholastics. By the end of the year, more students enrolled, and two were expelled, ending the year with a student body of 18 boys, all white. Father Joseph Joset, a Jesuit missionary, attempted to enroll two native American boys but was rebuffed due to the whites-only policy. Father Rebmann told Joset that the school was only open to "Americans", which he did not consider Indians to be. Non-Catholic boys were also rejected, at least in the college's first years.

Expelled students might have run afoul of rules against offenses like theft, disobedience, impurity, or bans on alcohol and tobacco. The boys were supervised always and not allowed off-campus without a chaperone. They woke at 5:30 AM, and worked until lights out at 8:30 PM. Students attended Mass six days a week, twice on Sundays, and faced often daunting advancement exams. The school was divided into a Preparatory section for elementary school-age boys, an Academic section with Third, Second, and First divisions, and an upper-division like a liberal arts college, for Poetry, Rhetoric and Philosophy. In the second year, enrollment began with 35 boys, 27 of whom were still attending at year's end. By 1890, three of the original 17 faculty members remained. The original Father Superior was followed by Father Charles Mackin, who was replaced in 1891 by Father John Baptist Rene. He served until 1893 and was replaced by Father Leopold Van Gorp.

Students were not allowed to advance to higher classes except upon passage of rigorous examinations that were overseen by the Prefect of Studies. Students might become sick from anxiety while preparing and some withdrew rather than face the exams.

Gonzaga conferred its first Bachelor of Arts degrees to two students. A four-story building was planned in 1897, which opened in 1899 as the New Gonzaga. In 1892, with an enrollment of 50 boys, football, called "college-down", was first played at Gonzaga on Thanksgiving Day. The same year, Gonzaga added a new dormitory, and a wood-framed St. Aloysius Church, and the campus got electric power service for the first time.

Cardinal Bea House scandal

In 2018, the Center for Investigative Reporting published evidence that the Cardinal Bea House, owned by the Jesuit order and located next to Gonzaga's campus, was used by the Catholic Church as a retirement home for priests with histories of sexual predation and abuse from across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, from the 1970s through 2016. Sexually abusive priests were quietly kept there, out of contact with vulnerable populations yet shielded from any liability for the abuse they had committed. The last abusive priest moved out of the Cardinal Bea House in 2016.