History:     
Father Matthew Riordan established St. Patrick's Catholic Church in 1866 at the corner of Fourth and Linden. The first St. Patrick was a two-story structure with a school on the first floor and the church located on the second floor. From its inception, education has been a significant part of St. Patrick's mission.

St. Patrick Church and St. Patrick School served through three yellow fever epidemics, the great depression, and two world wars. St. Patrick School closed in 1950 due to a falling base of Catholic students whose families had begun to migrate to suburbs in the east. In 1954 the Paulists accepted responsibility for St. Patrick Church, and by 1966 what had been a missionary focus to the southeastern United States shifted to a focus on the immediate neighborhood surrounding the church.