St. Joseph’s Academy
El Paso, Texas

Description: St. Joseph’s Academy
Other Names: Convent for the Marie Repatratrix Sisters
Address: 700-704 (originally 422) North El Paso Street, El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Type: educational
Original Client: Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross
Date: after 1903; before 1906.
Condition: demolished to make way for the Interstate 10 highway

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost
Contractors:
Dimensions and Orientation: three stories
Budget/Cost:

Foundation: rubble stone
Wall Materials: red brick
Roofing Materials: 5 ply gravel
Other Materials Used: concrete coping, window caps and sills; galvanized iron cross and lettering
Remodeling and Additions:

Location of Drawings: El Paso Public Library: (L-61) 2 tissue drawings for rectangular building with two short wings, 2 stories, 159 feet across; (D-4) 3 story addition to existing building, 1st and 2nd stories for classrooms, 3rd story for dormitory, 5 ink on linen plans, elevations. Loretto Academy, El Paso: blueprints
Location of Documentary Photographs: El Paso Public Library: Ponsford 434, general view of Trost building and old academy; Aultman A5056, the same; 1109

Bibliography: (1) Trost & Trost, Architects. (El Paso: Trost & Trost, 1907), page 21, photograph of facade, detail of Ponsford 434
(2) Cleofas Calleros, El Paso…Then and Now, (El Paso: American Printing Company, 1954), Volume VII, page 51, photograph, history of the Academy, including uses after 1923
(3) El Paso Times, August 28, 1983, illustration with caption which erroneously states that the addition was built in 1893
(4) Sister M. Lilliana Owens, Loretto in El Paso, 1879-1952, (St. Louis: McMullen, 1964), history of the school and illustration

Remarks: St. Joseph’s Academy was the predecessor school for the Loretto Academy , also a Trost & Trost commission.

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990