Jesuits dedicate Parish and School of the Immaculate Conception, now Seattle University's Garrand Building, on December 8, 1894.

  • By HistoryLink Staff
  • Posted 5/09/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 3265
See Additional Media

On December 8, 1894, Fr. Victor Garrand, SJ, (1847-1925) formally dedicates the new home of the Parish and School of the Immaculate Conception near the intersection of Broadway and Madison Street on the eastern slope of First Hill. The four-story brick-and-stone building houses a school, parish chapel, and apartments for Jesuit clergy and faculty. It survives today as the Garrand Building on the Seattle University campus, and was refurbished in the late 1990s. (December 8 is the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.)

Built With Energy and Spirit

The Jesuits purchased the building's site in 1890. Fr. Garrand arrived in Seattle in late summer 1891, accompanied by Fr. Adrian Sweere, SJ, (1840-1913) and established a temporary Jesuit boy's school in St. Francis Hall, near 6th Avenue and Spring Street. Garrand immediately began raising funds for a permanent school, but was hampered by the economic "Panic of 1893."

Assisted by architect John Parkinson, Garrand personally supervised design and construction of the new building. Construction labor was largely donated by Catholic parishioners. Garrand recorded that "the Irish wanted to prove to me that their devotion was superior to that of the Germans, and the Germans wanted to do better than the Irish." All worked "with an energy and spirit that surprised the whole town," he wrote.

Almost Lost, Now a Landmark

The building's upper floor housed a chapel for the new parish. Its lower levels contained classrooms and apartments for clergy and faculty. The school was renamed Seattle College in 1898, and the chapel was converted to educational use in 1905 after the parish center transferred to the new Church of the Immaculate Conception at 18th Avenue and E Marion Street.

The building was nearly lost in a fire on May 1, 1907, and its original hipped roof and belfry were not replaced until renovation of the Garrand Building in 1996. Seattle College used the building until 1919, when it temporarily relocated to the present campus of Seattle Prep on Capitol Hill. The College returned in 1930, and was reincorporated as Seattle University in 1948.


Sources:

Walt Crowley, Seattle University: A Century of Jesuit Education (Seattle: Seattle University, 1991).


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You