St. Ignatius High School

Cleveland's Catholic schoolchildren began attending parochial schools in their neighborhood in the 1850s, choosing to avoid a public school system that many considered anti-Catholic. However, these first Catholic schools were only grammar schools and did not offer higher education. Cleveland's Catholic population continued to grow during the last quarter of the 19th century, as Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe joined the Irish and Germans already moving into the city. Recognizing the city's growing need for better and more widespread Catholic education, Bishop Richard Gilmour invited a group of Jesuit priests from Buffalo to open a Catholic academy near the city's west side.

St. Ignatius Academy opened in 1886 in a wooden building at West 30th Street and Carroll Avenue with 76 students. Its five-story brick main building (which still stands today) did not open until 1890. Initially, St. Ignatius offered a seven-year course of study, culminating in the award of a Bachelor of Arts degree. A 1905 book on Cleveland education explained that students at the college could take "Christian doctrine, Latin, Greek, and English; rhetoric, poetry, eloquence, and English literature; mathematics, physics, and chemistry; history and geography "Bookkeeping and Calligraphy" courses specialize in philosophy. In 1902,

, the high school and college became separate entities, forming a more modern arrangement. In 1935, the college, which was renamed John Carroll University in 1923, moved to its own campus in suburban University Heights. St. Ignatius High School remains in Ohio City and has since expanded outward from the original building, with the campus now centered on both sides of Lorraine Avenue between West 28th Street and West 32nd Street.

It is known for its academic excellence, championship-winning athletic teams and community service in Ohio City