Spring Hill College is a private, Jesuit liberal arts college in Mobile, Alabama.

It was founded in 1830 by Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile. Along with being the
oldest college or university in the state of Alabama, it was the first Catholic
college in the South, is the fifth-oldest Catholic college in the United States,
and is the third-oldest of the 28-member Association of Jesuit Colleges and
Universities.

History
Cardinal Joseph Fesch, an early benefactor of the College.
Cardinal Joseph Fesch, an early benefactor of the College.
Spring Hill College was founded by the first bishop of Mobile, Michael Portier, who
was from France. After purchasing a site for the college on a hill near Mobile,
Bishop Portier went to France to recruit teachers and raise funds for the new
college. Portier recruited two priests and four seminarians from France to staff
the school. A friend of Portier, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, was a
major benefactor to the fledgling College, donating his philosophical and
theological library and various works of art. Pauline Jaricot, founder of the
Society of the Propagation of the Faith, donated 38,000 francs, an enormous sum in
those days.

The bishop himself taught theology to the ecclesiastical students, who numbered six
the first year. Upon his return from France, Portier rented a hotel next to the
college grounds and started the first semester on May 1, 1830, with an enrollment
of thirty students. On July 4 of the same year, the bishop laid the cornerstone of
the first permanent building. It stood on the site of the present Administration
Building and opened for classes in November 1831. Spring Hill is the oldest
institution of higher education in Alabama and among the oldest colleges in the
South. It is the third-oldest Jesuit college in the United States.[4][5]

The original main building, built in 1831.

The original main building, built in 1831.
In 1836 the governor of Alabama, Clement C. Clay, signed a legislative act that
chartered the college and gave it "full power to grant or confer such degree or
degrees in the arts and sciences, or in any art or science as are usually granted
or conferred by other seminaries of learning in the United States." This power was
used in the following year, 1837, when four graduates received their degrees.

The first two presidents of the college were called away to be bishops, one to
Dubuque, Iowa (Bishop Mathias Loras), the other to Vincennes, Indiana (Bishop John
Stephen Bazin). The third president, Father Mauvernay, died after a brief term of
office. Bishop Portier transferred the College, first to the French Fathers of
Mercy, and next to the Society of Jesus and Mary, but both groups lacked teaching
and administrative experience.[6]

He persuaded the Fathers of the Lyonnais Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
to take possession of the college.[6] The new regime was inaugurated with Father
Francis Gautrelet, S.J., as president in September 1847. Since that time the
institution has continued under Jesuit direction.[4]

Many boys were sent to Spring Hill during the American Civil War as they neared the
draft age. But numerous students wanted to be part of the war effort. The college
eventually formed two military companies. Some of Spring Hill's Jesuit fathers
became chaplains for the Confederacy. A recruiter tried to conscript all forty of
the Jesuit brothers at the college into the Confederate Army. The college
president, Gautrelet, dispatched an urgent message to the assistant secretary of
war in Richmond, who granted a temporary reprieve of the brothers' conscription.[6]

The second main building, now the Rev. Gregory F. Lucey, S.J. Administration
Center, built in 1869.
The second main building, now the Rev. Gregory F. Lucey, S.J. Administration
Center, built in 1869.
During the Reconstruction era, the College recruited students from among the sons
of Central American and Cuban leaders. Following student complaints that Spanish
was challenging the dominance of English on the campus, the Jesuits organized a
Spanish�American league.[6] In 1869 a fire destroyed the main building. Students
and faculty had to relocate for a time to St. Charles College in Grand Coteau,
Louisiana. Bishop John Quinlan and other benefactors assisted in rebuilding the
college, which reopened at Spring Hill before the year's end.[4]

As the enrollment increased, Quinlan Hall, St. Joseph's Chapel, the Thomas Byrne
Memorial Library, and Mobile Hall were erected. In 1935, the high school, which had
been a unit distinct from the college since 1923, was discontinued. In the space
vacated by the high school, the Jesuit House of Studies was opened in 1937, and the
Scholasticate of the Sacred Heart opened on a site adjoining the college a few
years later.[4]

St. Joseph Chapel, built in 1910.

St. Joseph Chapel, built in 1910.
After World War II, a great influx of veterans taxed the facilities of the college,
which erected numerous temporary buildings on the campus to handle the new
students. At the request of Archbishop Thomas Joseph Toolen of Mobile, the college
became co-educational in 1952. In 1954 the college accepted African-American
students into all departments, before the United States Supreme Court ruling in
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation in public schools was
unconstitutional. Mrs. Fannie E. Motley was the first black graduate from the
institution in 1956.[4]

Spring Hill College was a leading institution in Alabama to press for racial
equality. It was praised by civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., who referred to the college in his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He
noted that the college was one of the first Southern schools to integrate. Spring
Hill received threats from those opposed to the civil rights movement and
integration.[4]

On the night of January 21, 1957, a dozen or more darkened cars entered the main
avenue of the college. KKK members tried to set up a kerosene-soaked cross outside
Mobile Hall, a dormitory. They were unaware that they were there during finals
week. Most of the white, male residents were still awake, studying for exams, and
several heard the hammering. Once alerted, students streamed from both ends of the
building carrying whatever items were handy as weapons � golf clubs, tennis
rackets, bricks, a softball bat � and put the panicked Klansmen to flight. A KKK
contingent returned the next night, burning a cross at the gate of the College
before students reacted. The following day, a group of students � male and female �
hanged a Klansman in effigy at the College gate, with a sign reading, "KKKers ARE
CHICKEN."[7]

On July 27, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald spoke at Spring Hill about life in the Soviet
Union; his speech was considered controversial because of strong opposition in the
United States to communism during the Cold War. His lecture took place months
before he assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.[8]

Following Hurricane Katrina's widespread destruction along the central Gulf Coast
in 2005, Spring Hill accepted 117 students, the majority of them from Loyola
University in New Orleans, a brother Jesuit institution, for the remainder of the
year.[9]