Saint Ignatius College Prep history

In September 1870, Saint Ignatius opened its doors to thirty-seven young men who had completed the eighth grade, the extent of formal education offered in the area at the time.

In October 1871, disaster struck Chicago in the form of the Great Chicago Fire.

Scarcely 20 years after the school was founded, the neighborhood had changed from mostly Irish to Jewish and Italian, but that didn’t stop it from building what is still called the “new building” in 1895 to better accommodate the 500 scholars in attendance.

Henry Dumbach, S.J., began that effort and Loyola Academy opened in 1907.

By 1922, St Ignatius College had become too large for its buildings, with the collegiate part of the school growing significantly.

The most significant object is the only remaining portion, 22 feet, of the terra-cotta cornice from Louis Sullivan's Chicago Stock Exchange, demolished in 1965.

John Chandler, a St Ignatius faculty member since 1974, is now the school’s vice president and is set to become the school’s first lay president in July.

In 1979, the school welcomed girls, many of the first of whom were sisters of boys currently enrolled.

In 1984, under new school leadership and under the direction of its Board of Trustees, the first of many capital campaigns began to improve salaries and benefits and renovate historic school buildings.

Skerrett, whose first book was “Chicago: City of Neighborhoods” (Loyola Press, 1986), said she always looks for the hidden history, the minutiae of everyday life like the nuggets that can be found in the Jesuits’ daily records.