Central Catholic was founded by Brother Florentius and the Marist Brothers of the Schools in 1935, to provide boys from Lawrence and vicinity the previously unavailable opportunity to receive a Catholic high school education. [click the images to read our history]

			CENTRAL CATHOLIC'S FIRST ALUMNI CLASS In August of 1938, Brother Joseph Abel was named to succeed Brother Florentius as principal. In June 1939 the first class of fifty graduates became the first alumni of Central Catholic High School.
			CONTINUED GROWTH By 1945, seventeen Marist Brothers conducted eighty-four classes daily for five hundred and sixty students. The graduates of June 1945 brought the alumni total to four hundred. The need for additional classrooms and an expanded cafeteria resulted in the erection of an annex. Together, the 99 Auburn Street building and annex served the students and faculty until 1971.
			MEMORIAL GYMNASIUM BUILDING In the face of increasing demand for admission, the Memorial Gymnasium Building was completed in 1950, providing athletic locker rooms, additional classrooms and what was, at the time, the largest auditorium/gymnasium in the Merrimack Valley with a seating capacity of 2,500. As with the original building and its annex, the majority of the construction labor on the Memorial Gymnasium was provided by the Marist Brothers. The new building was dedicated in 1951 to the memory of fourteen Central Catholic alumni killed in action during World War II.
			EVOLVING FACULTY In 1960, with the size of the student body outpacing the available teaching personnel of the Marist Brothers, three lay teachers ­ all alumni ­ were admitted to the faculty. Two of these men ­ Mr. Warren Hayes and Mr. Michael Sullivan ­ began their fortieth year on faculty in 1999. The first lay woman joined the faculty in 1967. Over the years, the lay faculty would gradually increase to a large majority of the staff and would assume positions of significant leadership.