Loyola High School of Los Angeles is the region's oldest continuing educational institution pre-dating both the Los Angeles public school and the University of California systems. The school began in the downtown plaza Lugo adobe in 1865 as Saint Vincent's College at the behest of Archdiocese of Los Angeles Bishop Thaddeus Amat. After relocating to Hill Street in 1869 and to Grand Avenue in 1889, the Vincentian fathers ceded control of the school to the Society of Jesus in 1911, and it relocated to Avenue 52 in Highland Park as the prep school Los Angeles College. In 1917 the school moved to its current location on Venice Boulevard after the copper magnate and Irish philanthropist Thomas P. Higgins helped secure land for the school.