St. Mary's University Campus Tour

The Marianist brothers opened a school in San Antonio in 1852, and in 1894 they built a boarding college on what was then open country at the end of a buggy trail northwest of town. That building, St. Louis Hall, still anchors the campus; the downtown college moved here in 1923 under the St. Mary's name, and it became St. Mary's University in 1927. This walk starts at the Marian statue at the entrance, visits the historic hall and the chapel the brothers built, and finishes under the bell tower and among the pecan trees where alumni have gathered for more than a century.

St. Mary's University describes itself as the oldest Catholic university in Texas and the American Southwest, and its northwest San Antonio campus still carries the imprint of the Marianist brothers who built it.

The Society of Mary began teaching in San Antonio in 1852. By the 1890s the brothers had raised a Romanesque boarding college well outside the city, on open land reached by little more than a buggy road. That limestone landmark, St. Louis Hall, once put classes, worship, meals and sleeping quarters under a single roof, and it is now listed on the National Register. The downtown college relocated to this site in 1923, and university status followed four years later.

Daily rhythms of faith are easy to spot. Each afternoon the Barrett Memorial Bell Tower sounds for the Marianist Three O'Clock Prayer, and the university says the tower also winks at the film The Bells of St. Mary's. The Assumption Chapel, built by the brothers in 1908, still welcomes the public to daily Mass. Under the campus pecans, alumni keep up a Homecoming version of the Oyster Bake, a tradition dating to 1916 that grew into one of Fiesta's signature parties.

It's a relaxed, atmospheric outing for anyone drawn to Catholic San Antonio, historic architecture and the traditions that bind generations of Rattlers together.