The former Hamilton Catholic High School, 533 Dayton St., Hamilton, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The $100,000 Hamilton Catholic High School was dedicated Nov. 11, 1923. The building at the southwest corner of North Sixth and Dayton streets replaced the Morey mansion on the same site, where the school had started in September 1909 with 61 male enrollees. In 1926, Notre Dame Academy, a Catholic school for girls that had started with 16 pupils in 1887, changed its name to Notre Dame High School. Notre Dame was at the northeast corner of South Second and Hanover streets. In 1966, Stephen T. Badin High School opened at 571 New London Road in Hamilton, combining the former Notre Dame (female) and Hamilton Catholic (male) high schools. The new coed school reported 975 students (499 girls, 476 boys) on opening day Sept. 9, 1966. After 1966 the former Hamilton Catholic High School building was used as an elementary school by Corpus Christi Catholic Church, a parish located in New Burlington in Hamilton County. The elementary school closed in 1980 and the building was purchased by Ohio Casualty Group which converted it into a corporate training center. It was renamed the Joseph L. Marcum Development and Education Center. In March 2000 Ohio Casualty sold the Marcum building for $650,000 to the Hamilton City School District, which relocated its administrative center from 332 Dayton Street to the 533 Dayton Street site.
"The Hamilton Catholic School is important for its association with the Catholic education system in southwestern Ohio as it was the earliest central Catholic high school in the region," explained the Ohio Historic Preservation Office of the Ohio Historical Society. "Additionally, the building is a fine example of the early 20th century eclectic designs of the prominent local architect, Frederick G. Mueller." OHPO said the 1923 building replaced a former 19th century [Morey] mansion on the site which had served as the first school. The school was established in 1901 at this location. . . . At the time, the concept of sending children from several parishes to one central high school was unique in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and Ohio. The establishment of this school was one of the first of its kind in the country; according to some sources, it was the very first in the United States. Although parish elementary schools were common by the late 19th century, a Catholic secondary education could only be obtained from private schools and academies. In the first decade of the 20th century," the OHPO report says, Hamilton "had several ethnic parishes with their own grade schools and a private girls' school, Notre Dame Academy, which had been in existence since 1889. There was no Catholic secondary school for boys in the city until the establishment of the Hamilton Catholic School in 1909; this central school provided a secondary education for all Catholic boys, supported by all of the parishes in Hamilton. The school was operated throughout its history by the Brothers of Mary." OHPO says "although the new Hamilton Catholic School was the second structure to represent this innovative institution, it was not until 1928 that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati had a formal system of centralized high schools. In 1930, an addition to the southwest corner of the building, matching the original exactly, proved that predictions concerning rapidly increasing enrollments were correct." OHPO says "the design of the new Hamilton Catholic High School building was the work of Frederick G. Mueller, Hamilton's leading architect in the early twentieth century. Mueller (1873-1947), a native and lifelong resident of the city, studied at Chicago's Armour Institute and then worked with William K. Fellows of Chicago and Frank Packard of Columbus, Ohio. In 1928 Mueller formed a partnership with Walter R. Hair, who had been a draftsman in his office since 1912. Completed in December 1923, the Hamilton Catholic School is representative of Mueller's eclectic designs of this period, which combined elements from the Romanesque and Renaissance periods of Italian architecture with other styles popular in the early twentieth century. Other buildings in Hamilton by Mueller from this period include the Temple Bene Israel, 914 High Street; the William Shuler House, 712 Dayton Street; and St. Joseph's School, northwest corner of South Second and Hanover streets. In the late 1920s, Mueller was practicing in the Tudor Revival and Neo-Classical Revival styles, as well as other European revival styles. The firm was later responsible for the design of the 1935 Art Deco style Municipal Building in Hamilton."