The impetus to build a college was born of competition with Protestants for access to various tribes through Congressionally allocated and subsidized mission schools. Cataldo recognized the need for local formation of Jesuits to staff those schools and the central location of Spokane Falls for that purpose. A half-section of railroad land was purchased for a campus in 1881, and by 1886 the venture had both a building and a capable first superior, Fr. James Rebmann. Gonzaga College began its first academic year September 17, 1887 with a Mass of the Holy Spirit, a tradition that continues today. Its Jesuit community totaled seventeen members, nearly a 1:1 ratio with its first student body. For admission, applicants "must know how to read and write, and not be under ten years of age;" in addition to preparatory subjects, an upper level course of studies was also offered. An early decision to enroll only white students indicated that though rooted in the missionary cause, Gonzaga's role was to be at least one step removed from it.

Enrollment rose quickly, helped by the Jesuits' sponsorship of a surrounding Catholic lay community through their legal arm, the Pioneer Educational Society. Day students were first allowed in 1889, and a new frame church and boarding facilities, complete with electricity, were constructed three years later. After weathering the Depression of 1893, Gonzaga's cautious, steady leaders, Frs. Leopold Van Gorp and Paul Arthuis, turned to the task of building a more permanent residence and school. First, Gonzaga was incorporated and legally empowered to grant degrees. Next, requiring two years to complete, a four-story brick structure was ready for use in 1899. Meanwhile they had relocated the church to centralize the new campus; the old school was also moved closer, and the Northwest Jesuit Scholasticate was transferred there from St. Ignatius Mission, Montana.

In their new building at the century-turn, Gonzaga's faculty and staff of 24 stood ready to greet 244 registered students. Both a Classical and a Commercial Course of Studies were offered. The former was subdivided into a Collegiate Department, with Classes in Philosophy, Rhetoric, Poetry and Humanities, and an Academic Department, with First, Second and Third Academic Classes. The Commercial Course, divided into three levels, stressed essential business management skills; it also included a Preparatory Department, with two levels, whose purpose was the instruction of grammar to younger pupils. Extracurricular time could be devoted to a variety of sodalities, a military cadet corps, the band, choir or symphony, debate or dramatic societies, baseball, and though unsanctioned, football. By its fourteenth commencement in 1901, Gonzaga had conferred a total of two Masters and thirty-one Baccalaureate degrees.

The next two decades witnessed steady growth and development. In 1903-4 the main building was doubled in size, adding a swimming pool and gymnasium to students' extracurricular repertoire; in response to a fatal typhoid outbreak, two years later Goller Hall was built, a combined infirmary and Jesuit residence. The original frame church was converted to a theater and relocated again to make clear space for a towering twin-spired St. Aloysius Church, dedicated in 1911. Fr. Arthuis' next great building project was a new Jesuit Scholasticate, Mt. St. Michael's, completed in 1916 and located atop a prominence twelve miles northeast of the campus. New construction ceased during the WWI years, though modest improvements were made to the physics, chemistry and biology facilities. Less visible changes had been happening too, which indicate an increasingly serious academic climate and consolidated student body. In 1910 the quarterly Gonzaga Magazine first appeared, offering students a new outlet for creative expression. The state legislature awarded Gonzaga legal status as University in 1912, the same year its School of Law opened under the capable direction of Dean Ed Cannon. And not only were the scholastics removed to Mt. St. Michael's, but two nearby parochial elementary schools were now absorbing the younger grades.

In retrospect the 1920s seem a boisterous decade at Gonzaga. Football, reinstated in 1907, was now a community passion, and though neither dominant nor ever fully integrated into regional collegiate conference participation, its teams at least became legendary. The spectacles required a stadium, capable of seating twelve thousand boosters; the much loved and abused DeSmet Hall men's residence was also added in 1925. Reflecting the spirit of the times, a School of Economics and Business Education was opened in 1921. A campus weekly, The Bulletin was added two years later, temporarily displacing the more reflective Magazine, which when revived in 1926 was renamed Gonzaga Quarterly. Also reflecting a national trend toward more standardized educational criteria, education classes appeared in the curriculum as early as 1920. Summer intensive courses for teachers began in 1924, and the Board of Trustees established a School of Education in 1928, the special care of Dean Maurice Flaherty, S.J., for its first twenty-five years.

Like the rest of the country, the 1930s and early 1940s were lean years for Gonzaga, and but for the determined leadership of President Leo Robinson, S.J., and a key contribution in 1939, the University might not have survived. Virtually no new buildings were added, though a Graduate School was organized in 1931, the Library modernized in 1933, and a School of Engineering established in 1934, in response to demand created by New Deal-sponsored projects. In 1940 the student body numbered 1200, of whom 500 were either scholastics, nursing or law students. But campus life changed dramatically during the WWII years. A disastrous fire swept through the Law Library and science labs three days after Pearl Harbor. Many Jesuit faculty members departed to become chaplains, and women assumed a more prominent presence. From 1941 to 1945, Dean James McGivern saw his Engineering enrollment drop from 175 to 31 students. The ever popular but expensive football program was finally dropped in 1942. Meanwhile during the same years, nearly 3250 men passed through Gonzaga as part of the U.S. Navy's V5 and V12 training programs.

Due to the G.I. Bill, Gonzaga rebounded during the postwar years, especially the School of Engineering, which was presented with a handsome new building in 1949. Other developments included adding Journalism to the School of Business, a ROTC program, and a radio station. For the first time in its history, Gonzaga's 1948 freshman class included coeds, who would read and soon revise the school's "Credo of the Gonzaga Man." In five years their numbers required the construction of a women's dormitory, soon followed by the "COG," a new Student Union Building. Gonzaga Prep High School was also completed in 1954, which meant that these students were no longer a part of campus life. An Accelerated Teacher Training program was added to the School of Education in 1956, and the following year, a new men's dormitory. The Crosby Library was also dedicated in 1957, an effort initiated nine years earlier by Gonzaga's most famous alumnus, Bing Crosby, then at the height of his career. Finally, another more subtle change was happening throughout the 1950s. At the opening of the decade, Jesuits comprised 45% of the 110 faculty members, excluding the Schools of Law and Nursing; fifteen years later that total had nearly doubled while the relative presence of Jesuits had dropped to 31%.

The energy animating the Second Vatican Council seems to have touched Gonzaga too, for the 1960s opened with a burst of activity. The spirit of the old Gonzaga Quarterly, discontinued since 1937, found new expression in Reflection, which has continued to the present. Two new programs were added, a Masters in Business in 1962 and the Florence (Italy) Study Abroad the next year, and the first issue of the Gonzaga Law Review appeared in 1966, all of which have remained as prominent, popular features of the University. By 1966 there had been a spree of new construction too, no less than seven dormitories, a building for Chemistry and Biology, and the Kennedy Athletic Center, as well as the acquisition of a nearby structure for the Law School. Gonzaga's Jesuit Residence also was replaced in 1964. The following year marked the beginning of a fifteen-year odyssey for historian Fr. Wilfred Schoenberg, S.J., as director of the Museum of Native American Culture (MONAC). Eventually located on the campus periphery, the original museum building now serves as a multi-purpose Conference Center.

In 1974 the Trustees inaugurated Gonzaga's twenty-third president, Fr. Bernard Coughlin, S.J., thus ushering in a critical era of steady growth matched with fiscal stability. He began with an endowment of $6 million and an annual budget of $9.6 million; at his retirement twenty one years later in 1995, the former stood at $50 million and the latter at $71 million, balanced for all but the first two years of his tenure. Meanwhile the student body had increased from about 3000 to 5000 enrollees. Two new programs were formed in 1975, a School of Professional Studies and CREDO, a popular sabbatical curriculum in Religious Studies. In 1978 a baccalaureate in Nursing was added, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership the following year. Existing programs acquired professional accreditation: the Law School in 1977, Nursing in 1983, Engineering in 1985, and Business in 1990. In the process a new School of Business was constructed, and Engineering, as well as the Athletic Center, were expanded. More recently Gonzaga has added a $20 million state-of-the-art library, a building for the School of Education, and a Fine Art Center and Museum. Currently new Chemistry and Law School facilities are being planned. A final event of note, nearly hidden in the heart of the Coughlin era, was the centennial-year formation of the Council for Partnership in Mission. Charged with creating a new statement of institutional mission, the Council is now actively encouraging its integration into all aspects of university life, thus crafting a vision for Gonzaga's second century, in which cooperation between its Jesuit and lay members will need to be redefined anew.