St. Michael Parish was founded on April 19th, 1903 by the Right Reverend Leo Haid, a Benedictine Bishop and Abbot, on Long Avenue and Falls Street in downtown Gastonia. The funding for the church was helped along by St. Katharine Drexel.

Our school was the next chapter of the Saint Michael parish to take form. The original schoolhouse was built in 1942 and founded under the direction of Father Gregory Eichenlaub, O.S.B.

The original school was initially located in a parishioner’s five-room home, staffed by the local Sisters of Mercy. The school served students in grades 1–6. Ten years later, in 1952, the school moved to its current location as the first building on our campus.

Since then, we have been providing an enriched and profound Catholic education. This photo of the third grade in 1963–1964 shows how the first instructors from 1942 — Sisters from the local Sisters of Mercy convent — continued to instruct at our school. The Sisters worked as teachers at the school until well into the 1980s.

Following our school building, the second church with attached rectory was built next to the school in 1958 and now acts as the backdrop to our upper school playground and field. We added a Parish Center and Gym building to our growing campus in April of 1979.

Our full parochial history is quite storied and full of lively details. Please consult our 93-page book detailing the full parish history, made in November of 2003, for further information.

In a more recent addition, a talk by Dr. Bill Thierfelder — the former President of Belmont Abbey College and a St. Michael’s parishioner — details a bit of the past that St. Michael and Belmont Abbey share.