 St. Joseph High School was opened in 1950 on the site of Boulevard Hospital, a general hospital which closed in 1937 (originally, the Cunningham Sanitarium - a facility designed to use pressurized atmosphere as an aid in the treatment of disease).Bishop Edward Francis Hoban had asked the Society of Mary (Marianists) from Dayton, Ohio to administer the school.The school's mascot was the Viking due to the school's proximity to Lake Erie.