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It’s Throwback Thursday!

Each Thursday, throughout the summer, the Office of College Communications will include historical facts about the college in The Dome, on Facebook and Twitter.  It’s all part of our yearlong sesquicentennial celebration, which culminates in September 2020 when Canisius turns 150 years old. 

Today, we flash back to June 19, 1911 when more than 1,500 people witnessed the laying and blessing of the cornerstone at the “new” Canisius College on Main Street in Buffalo, NY.

Attired in military splendor, Col. John L. Schwartz, president of the Alumni Association and head of the college’s Building Fund Committee, addressed the crowd. Col. Schwartz spoke about the committee’s campaign to raise $100,000 for the new building. He explained how its 140 members, many of them businessmen, abandoned their work for days at a time to canvass the city asking for donations of a dollar or more. In the end, the volunteers of the Building Fund Committee raised $100,059. Soon after, Buffalo Bishop Rev. Charles H. Colton turned the first spade of earth and the building of Old Main began.

Submitted by: College Communications