St. Mary's Academy (Portland, Oregon)
| St. Mary's Academy | |
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| Address | |
 St. Mary's Academy
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1615 SW 5th Avenue Portland, Oregon, Multnomah County 97201 United States |
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| Coordinates | 45°30′45″N 122°40′53″W / 45.51250°N 122.68139°WCoordinates: 45°30′45″N 122°40′53″W / 45.51250°N 122.68139°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Private, All-Girls |
| Motto | Today's young woman. Tomorrow's leader. |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Roman Catholic |
| Established | 1859 |
| President | Christina Friedhoff |
| Principal | Kelli Clark |
| Faculty | 67 |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Enrollment | 725 (2015-2016) |
| Average class size | 21 |
| Student to teacher ratio | 11.33:1 |
| Color(s) | Blue and white |
| Athletics conference | OSAA Three Rivers League 6A-2 |
| Mascot | Blues |
| Accreditation | Northwest Accreditation Commission |
| Publication | Escribe Maria (literary magazine), The Ms. Print (student newspaper), and Imprint (alumnae magazine) |
| Website | stmaryspdx.org |
St. Mary's Academy is a Roman Catholic high school located in Portland, Oregon. It was founded by twelve sisters from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1859. It is an all-girls school with approximately 725 students from northern Oregon and southwestern Washington. Since its founding, over 10,000 women have graduated from St. Mary’s Academy, the oldest continuously-operating secondary school in Oregon.
St. Mary's was founded by twelve sisters from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1859, at the request of archbishop François Norbert Blanchet. Only two of the sisters spoke English; the others spoke French. They traveled from Montreal via ship and rail to Fort Vancouver where Blanchet had established a school on property he purchased from Daniel H. Lownsdale in 1857. The property had a two-story house, which became the school. St. Mary's opened in the same location with six female students (three Catholic, two Jewish, one Protestant) on Monday, November 7, 1859, 17 days after they reached Portland.
In 1867, the first two graduates received their diplomas. The school had 250 girls in attendance by 1871. In 1889, the Lownsdale house was demolished and a four-story building designed by Otto Kleeman was built. In 1893, St. Mary's received a charter to grant college diplomas. It was the first women's liberal arts college in the Northwest and was known until 1930 as St. Mary's Academy and College.Marylhurst University, originally part of the downtown school, moved out in 1930.
The Kleeman building was inadequate for the students by the 1960s. The school expanded across 5th avenue, one block to the north, building a two-story brick building that is "strictly functional.... [with] no architectural pretensions". The Kleeman building was sold to a developer for $705,000 and demolished in 1970. A public parking lot currently is on that site, although the original stone wall surrounding the building was demolished by the current owner in 2010. The school bought the old PSU postal office in 2013 for $7.6 million to allow the school to expand. There is still some speculation on what to do with the new addition but the most likely usage would be for a new gymnasium and/or theater and possibly some more classrooms.
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