Colonel John G. Cullmann, a German immigrant founded the town of Cullman in 1873. He promoted the town among other German immigrants. Benedictine Monks came to the city from Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania in the 1880s. A number of these monks had come fromBavaria, in order to serve this German-speaking Catholic community. They established St. Bernard Abbey on September 29, 1891, named after St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In 1891, they also started St. Bernard Preparatory School on the monastery grounds. The state chartered the school 1893. While primarily a prep school, it sometimes granted bachelor's degrees. In 1929 the Board of Trustees added a junior college. In 1949, this became a senior college. Over the years, the school and abbey has educated candidates for ordination through its seminary programs from high school through graduate studies. St. Bernard College was closed in 1979, however, the institution reopened in 1984 as a coeducationalcollege preparatory school, serving grades 9-12. The Upper School is primarily housed in the Cullman-Swisher School Building, which was refurbished in 2009. Grades7and 8, the Middle School, were added in 2007. The Middle School is located in Founders' Hall.
Athletics
As a member of the Alabama High School Athletic Association, the school competes with public and private schools in football, cross country, basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, softball, and tennis. Boys' sports:
Soccer games at the school are played at one of the school's newest facilities, Alumni Field, which is located in the athletics area of the school campus. Basketball, volleyball and wrestling games and matches are played in the central facility of the St. Bernard Prep athletics area, the Fazi-Richard Athletic Center. The facility, completed in the mid-1990s, is complete with locker rooms, weight and training rooms, coaches' offices, a state-of-the-art basketball/volleyball court, and conference room. The Fazi-Richard Athletic Center is a multi-purpose facility as it hosts numerous performing arts, scholastic and alumni events yearly for the school, in addition to the athletic events. Tennis matches are played at the school's tennis grounds, Blevins Courts, which were renovated and subsequently renamed in late 2008, in honor of the alumni donor who funded the project. Blevins Courts are located adjacent to the Fazi-Richard Athletic Center and the project consisted of the renovation of three existing courts and the conversion of three additional courts from clay-surface to hard-surface courts. Also included in the project was the replacement of the deteriorated fence around the clay courts and the restoration of the fencing around the existing courts.
