Saint Louis University - St. Louis, Missouri - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

From   Missouri - A Guide to the "Show Me" State - St. Louis section:

ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, administration building, 221 N. Grand Bvld., comprises a group of six red-brick and stone buildings, three to five stories high, in modified Gothic style, including the gymnasium and Sodality Hall, south across W. Pine Blvd., and the medical and dental school buildings on the 1300 block of S. Grand Blvd.  The Administration Building contains a room memorializing Father Pierre Jean De Smet, famous early missionary to the Indians.  In the parlors and corridors of the building are approximately 40 old paintings attributed to Teniers, Pieto Meacello, the School of the Master of St. Severin, de Breen, Rubens, and others.  The collection was begun by Bishop Du Bourg soon after St. Louis Academy was established, and many of the paintings are said to have been taken from convents and churches deserted during the French Revolution.

Founded in 1818 as St. Louis Academy by the Right Reverend Louis William DuBourg, Bishop of  Louisiana, the school was renamed St. Louis College in 1820.  It was conducted for the first nine years by members of the diocesan clergy attached to the St. Louis Cathedral.  In 1823, Jesuit priests from Maryland organized an Indian school at Florissant, now St. Stanislaus Seminary, and in 1827 they took over the directorship of St. Louis College.  On December 28, 1832, St. Louis College received its charter as St. Louis University--the first university west of the Mississippi River.  It was moved from the old site on Washington Avenue and Ninth Street in 1888.  Until  recently, only men were admitted, and the university granted degrees to women through a group of corporate colleges, a system that was probably unique.  The university, combined with the corporate colleges, has an enrollment of 4,830 students and a faculty of 656.

Saint Louis University has expanded significantly since the Guide was written, the University now has in excess of 11,000 students.  The six buildings mentioned have expanded to many more though all but one of the six buildings still remain on campus.  The campus has expanded in all directions since the Guide was written and now occupies several blocks both east to west and south to north.  The art mentioned in the Guide is now mostly in Saint Louis University Museum of Art or one of the other art museums on campus.