Some places measure time in years. Others measure it in footsteps.

One hundred years ago today, Blue Jays walked onto a new campus and took their seats for the first day of classes at Carrollton & Banks. After nearly 80 years of Jesuit education in New Orleans, the opening of the Carrollton Avenue campus marked the beginning of a new chapter in the school’s history.

It was a different New Orleans. Students typically made their way to the new Mid-City campus by streetcar, and a year of tuition cost $80. The buildings were new, the neighborhood looked different, and the century of history now associated with Carrollton & Banks had yet to be written.

A century later, those footsteps are still being followed.

Generations of Blue Jays have walked these halls, climbed these stairs, sat in these classrooms, and prayed in these sacred spaces. The faces have changed. The campus has grown. And the world beyond these walls has changed more times than those first students could have imagined.

Through wars and storms, hard years and resilient times, remarkable moments and ordinary school days, thousands upon thousands of young men have passed through the doors at Carrollton & Banks. Each generation has left something of itself behind.

The campus has changed with them. New buildings have risen, the cafeteria have been renovated, and spaces for prayer, study, athletics, and community have been transformed to serve new generations of Blue Jays. About the only things that seem untouched are those stairwells, still carrying students from one floor to the next just as they did a century ago.

Yet amid all that change, something far more important has endured: the mission.

Since 1847, each generation has arrived at Jesuit to begin its own journey. Young men become Blue Jays, formed in faith, challenged through rigorous study, and prepared for lives of service to others.

Today, a century after the first students entered the new campus, those halls are once again filled with the sounds of another school year. Students climb the same stairs and gather in classrooms where generations came before them. Their experiences will be uniquely their own, just as they were for the Blue Jays who arrived in 1926, but they are also part of something much larger.

The campus at Carrollton & Banks stands today as both a link to Jesuit’s past and a home for its future. Within century-old walls, the work that began long before the move to Carrollton Avenue continues: forming young men of faith and men for others.

A century of footsteps. A century of stories.

And today, another generation adds its own.

Today, we celebrate 100 years on Carrollton & Banks, 1926 – 2026.