St. Joseph’s original campus being located in downtown Jackson places the school in a very unique category that was shared only by the much larger Central High School as the state’s largest city and the state capitol. Jackson bustled with the activity of state government, and a vibrant retail and commercial sector, which surrounded the small school with big energy.

Daniel Mcnamara 

St. Joseph school, from grammar school through high school was located in a building right behind the St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Leonard Thomas 

St. Joe downtown consisted of the brick building, which is where classrooms were in the offices. And then you had the GM about that, then you have a parking lot. But over on the corner down there, you had the old gray castle, which evidently he must have been a home years ago, that somebody built, this massive three-story home.

Daniel Mcnamara 

That was the Knights of Columbus, all we knew it is. And in that building, was the in the basement was the cafeteria. And the cafeteria is where we had our noon mail.

Leonard Thomas 

And we know we had classrooms on a couple of floors, but upstairs was the library. And that that you left woodland, that’s where Sister Mary john used to be able to, you know, from her perch, she could sit there and watch everybody, you know, coming and going.

Bill Raphael 

But I just love that school charm and character. And of course, around the gym, it was a dirt ground. And at the very end of the dirt ground near Lamar and MIT (1:29). That corner, there was some stairways down to another building that set by itself, a wood building except by itself out there. And there were some classes out there my freshman year. And when I look back all the years at St. Joe’s my favorite year because of that place, maybe it’s a little nostalgic with the building brick, but it had wood floors, wood windows, no air conditioning, which it didn’t seem to matter. I don’t remember just being overly hot in

Narrator 

the sport and the amenities of the St. Joe campus were more than compensated for by the excitement of downtown Jackson, and particularly capital Street.

Con Maloney 

So capital Street was very prominent up and down capitals street. Everybody had different ideas of what was there, there were a lot of shopping areas, Five and Dime stores and, and of course the bus ran up and down there, the downtown area compared to St. Joe was very vibrant. And there was a place called Rachael greens was right across the street from St. Joe. And everybody walked through Rachael greens every day and the people in there never really appreciated the fact that we trudge through and messed up their operations but we did every day anyway.

Leonard Thomas 

And I mean capital Street was the place. I mean, I can remember my mother dragging me downtown many a day when I was a kid, you know, to go buy clothes and and you know the crystal was up the street, had those great chocolate pass, one where you can get dime for hamburger for 25 cents. You know, I mean, in those days,

Con Maloney 

But as far as the theaters were concerned, it was one up towards north State Street called the majestic. And then downtown there was the century and across the street from that was the paramount. And every Saturday kids congregated and went to different movies.

Leonard Thomas 

We had the Greyhound bus station, you know, go over and mess around a little bit, play some pinball machines and things like that.

Con Maloney 

The Greyhound bus station was right across the street. In fact, it’s still there today. It’s obviously not a bus station any longer. But they had good pinball machines and they switched them out on a fairly regular basis that I think St. Joe helped to support the Greyhound bus station just playing those pinball machines.

Leonard Thomas 

You know, after school there are a lot of places to go. I mean, you know, the best was Tanner’s. They always had that fresh orange drink and fresh grapefruit juice. And back then, to practice football, we had to go to St. Mary’s because that’s where our bill was. We all had to get on the bus and ride over there. And we got back. The first thing we want to do after Shawn cleaned up was golf, go across the street to Tanner’s, get orange or grape or mix, get orange enjoy. And if you’re hungry, that was great footlong chili dogs for just me. They were so good.

Con Maloney 

And there was a place down on the corner, there was a Walgreens downstairs and up above that there was a place called 20th century recreation Hall. And it was known affectionately as the two o and you could go up to the two o and play and shoot pool or play cards or whatever. And as I grew older, that became the place that I went because the people before me went there.

Leonard Thomas 

You know at lunchtime, a lot of people try to run across, tried to run across the street and go to Walgreens and eat over there, but the old gray castle, which is a three-storey a four-storey building, the library was on the top floor, and a sister Mary john would lean out the window with her pad and her pencil and she would be watching and taking nice. As people, we would run across and yeah, you know, much kids were having fun. You know, it was cool but it was unique though being downtown, there’s no question about that. It really was.

Narrator 

The Temptations of the surrounding environment gave St. Joe’s priests and nuns plenty to manage. Added to the mix was the in-your-lap presence of mighty Central High School.

Con Maloney 

The proximity of St. Joe to Central was a fence that was about five feet on central side and five feet on St. Joseph. And that’s how close we were and central was multi-storey so they can get up in the wind is up there and throw erasers at us.

David Mcnamara 

We had great nuns, mercy nuns that taught us sister Elise and Sisto, Raelia and, of course sister Neary, but we also had priest. Priests would come over and teach your course. And usually that was religion. And we would have prayer every day. In the school.

Con Maloney 

Of course, I got kicked out of Central several times. We’d go over there to harass people in class and they kick us out of class and tell us to go to the principal and, and so we go down to the principal’s office, the principal’s like, Who are you? Well we’re from St. Joe, but they the teacher told us to come down here. Get out of here! In fact, one time, one of the nuns said Khan you know, we need to get some new erasers, harass those central kids and get them to throw erasers at us. And so we did. And they threw erasers at us. We had a pool supply of erasers. That’s how that’s how close to proximity was, but again, we knew all the central people, the central people knew us.