Originally part of St. Michael's Parish, St. Joseph's School for Creoles and St. Joseph's School for the Colored opened in 1877.

In the late 1880s, Mrs. Mercedes Sunday Ruby, petitioned Bishop Jeremiah O'Sullivan of the Mobile Diocese to establish a church for Creoles and African-Americans in an area of Pensacola known as the "Tan Yard." It became the first Black parish in the Diocese.

Bishop O'Sullivan wrote in his diary, "Although the church is for the colored race, white persons will be allowed to rent pews. But the colored people must always have the right to pews."

The first church was a two-story frame building built in 1892. The current structure, built in 1894, is in the Gothic Revival style.

In 1938 the St. Joseph School for Creoles closed. In 1942, a high school opened in its place, which closed in 1968.

Written by Ella McClellan, Student, Pensacola Catholic High School, 2001.

Copyright Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, 2011.