St. Mary's College started in 1863 as a diocesan school for young men set up by the Most Rev. Joseph Alemany of the OP, the first ecclesiastical overseer of the See of San Francisco. Troubled with the archdiocese's operation of the school, Archbishop Alemany connected for help from Rome and in 1868 St. Mary's College was given over to the De La Salle Christian Brothers.
In 1889, the school moved east crosswise over San Francisco Bay to Oakland, California. The area at the intersection of 30th and Broadway turned out to be warmly known as "The Brickpile" and Saint Mary's College would call Oakland home until 1928, when it moved further eastbound to Moraga after a flame seriously harmed the Brickpile. The Oakland site is California Historical Landmark #676 and is checked by a dedicatory plaque. The previous San Francisco site is presently the site of the St. Mary's Park neighborhood.
Amid its first years in Moraga, the school almost went bankrupt, yet in the long run figured out how to increase budgetary security when it was purchased by Archbishop John Joseph Mitty, for whom a living arrangement corridor is presently named. Amid World War II the school was utilized by the United States Navy for the preparation of pilots. Gerald Ford was quickly positioned at the school and served as a maritime teacher. The naval force raised numerous structures, including the world's biggest indoor pool, however one and only, Assumption Hall, stays on the grounds as the school had little use for the greater part of the structures after the war. Holy person Mary's kept on being a male-just school until 1970, when it got to be coeducational. From that point forward, more ladies have go to the school and by 2011, 62% of the understudies were ladies.