St. Rose's Industrial School
civic · active 1898-
Also known as St. Rose's Technical Institute; St. Rose Industrial School
A Roman Catholic industrial school for girls on G Street near 20th Street northwest in Washington, D.C., run by sisters. In 1898 it built a summer home for its pupils and sisters on the ocean front at Ocean City, at the north end of the boardwalk: two two-story buildings joined by a wide corridor, a hundred feet of beach frontage, elevated ten feet off the ground, colonial in style, with broad piazzas facing the sea. The contract went to D. J. Adkins of Berlin at $15,270, the money came from an unnamed donor, building began in March, and the house — accommodating sixty children under Sister Clara — was finished in July. A benefit excursion from Washington and Baltimore ran on 24 June 1898.
The most expensive documented building contract at 1890s Ocean City was for sixty working-class girls from a Washington charity school, not for a hotel.
In the record (4)
1898
St. Rose's Industrial School of Washington builds a $15,270 summer home for its sisters and girls at the north end of the boardwalk, paid for by an anonymous donor.
From Ocean City on 4 March 1898: 'The contract for the building here of the Summer home of the girls and sisters of St. Rose's Industrial School, of Washington, has been given out, the successful bidder being D. J. Adkins, of Berlin, Md., the contract price being $15,270. This proposed structure will be one hundred feet frontage on the beach, extending to the west about one hundred feet. It will in reality be two buildings, connected by a wide corridor, set back a little from the front line. The buildings will be elevated ten feet from the ground level, and will be of two stories, with a pitched roof, a broad porch extending the entire frontage. The style of architecture is mostly colonial, and when erected Ocean City will have one of the most spacious and attractive buildings of any seaside resort on the Atlantic.' The Evening Star's correspondent visited on 13 July: 'Those in charge of the St. Rose Industrial School on G street near 20th northwest have built a beautiful summer home here for pupils and sisters at the north end of the boardwalk. The money was donated by a gentleman who admired the work of the institution, and this site was selected and the building begun last March. Painters and electricians are giving the finishing touches, for it is thoroughly equipped to continue the work of winter school. Broad piazzas facing the ocean, ornamented by blooming plants, give the place a homelike appearance. Sister Clara is in charge. The house accommodates sixty children.' On Friday 24 June a special train ran from Washington and Baltimore to Ocean City 'under the auspices and for the benefit of the St. Rose Industrial School,' limited to a hundred passengers from each city. — 1898 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [reviewed]: Adds the builder, the donor, the plan, the capacity and the site, from two fuller accounts. From the Wilmington Evening Journal of 4 March 1898: the contract went to D. J. Adkins of Berlin, Md. at $15,270; the building would have "one hundred feet frontage on the beach, extending to the west about one hundred feet… in reality two buildings, connected by a wide corridor, set back a little from the front line… elevated ten feet from the ground level, and… of two stories, with a pitched roof, a broad porch extending the entire frontage. The style of architecture is mostly colonial." From the Washington Evening Star's Ocean City correspondence of 13 July 1898: the home stood "at the north end of the boardwalk"; "the money was donated by a gentleman who admired the work of the institution" — anonymous, which is as far as this record can now take the 1898 pass's question about who gave the $15,270; "painters and electricians are giving the finishing touches"; "Sister Clara is in charge"; and "the house accommodates sixty children and fifty sisters. Two hours each day are devoted to study, the other time to housework, sewing and recreation."
The largest single building contract recorded at Ocean City in the 1890s went not to a hotel syndicate but to a Catholic charity, so that sixty working girls from a Washington industrial school could spend the summer on the beach. The contractor was the same D. J. Adkins who was elected to the city council five months later.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1900
Fifty-five pupils of St. Rose's Industrial School come down for the summer to their own seashore home.
On Friday 29 June, the Evening Star's Ocean City correspondent reported, "fifty-five young lady pupils of the St. Rose Industrial School of Washington arrived to spend the summer at their seashore home here." The Sisters had completed the house in 1898 — broad shady porches, an artesian well pumped by a windmill, electric lights throughout — and in 1899 proposed to open a summer normal school in it for teachers "in the schools of almost all the large cities of the South." That 1899 pass logged the school as an open question rather than a claim, because no source said whom it served. 1900 does not answer that either, but it gives the first count: fifty-five girls, arriving as a body, in a resort whose whole year-round population was three hundred and sixty-five.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1911 · 1911-06-22
The Dominicans buy the Sisters of Charity property at Ocean City for a summer novitiate.
The Washington Evening Star of 22 June 1911, under the head 'BOUGHT BY DOMINICANS — Purchase of Property of Sisters of Charity at Ocean City, Md.': 'The property of the Sisters of Charity at Ocean City, Md., which has a lawn of about six acres, has been purchased by the Dominicans of the eastern province and will hereafter be the summer headquarters for the novices of the province. Rev. Father Aldrich will be the novice master in charge.' The county paper's Real Estate Transfers column for 8 July records a related conveyance: 'College of the Immaculate Conception from St. Roses' Technical School, property in Ocean City, on Sinepuxent Beach. Consideration, $10.' In October the Washington Times reported the Bishop of Wilmington putting to a convention a plan 'to establish a summer resort for Catholics at Ocean City, Md., where boys' camping parties can have outings with good surroundings.' The Catholic institutional presence at the north end of the beach — St. Rose's, the 'Catholic Home up the beach' occupied again that summer — is the boardwalk's northern boundary in 1912.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1912
A new twenty-five-foot boardwalk runs north from the Plimhimmon Hotel to St. Rose's Industrial School.
From the Democratic Messenger of 8 June 1912: "An item about Ocean City says: The new 25-foot boardwalk has been extended north from the Plimhimmon Hotel to St. Rose Industrial School. A new sewerage system is being installed. The [visitor] is surprised at the magnitude of the fishing industry. The landing of the fish by surf boats is an interesting revelation to the uninitiated. The wreck of the schooner John T. Hall, which came ashore some time ago during a heavy gale, is now high and dry on the beach." Twenty-five feet is a foot wider than the twenty-four-foot walk the town built on Atlantic Avenue and then charged to the frontage — the walk was growing, and growing northward, three years after the litigation over who pays for it began. The same paragraph is the campaign's best short description of what a 1912 visitor actually noticed: a new walk, a new sewer, a surf-boat fishery, and a wreck lying on the sand.
Source · checked 2026-08-06