Riverside School

For half a century the pupils here were mostly Wichita, Caddo and Delaware children. That changed in 1922, when Kiowa students enrolled after the Rainy Mountain school closed, and Navajo students began coming in 1945. What they were taught shifted with federal policy: in the boarding-school system that began with Carlisle, agriculture led until about 1910, vocational training until 1960 and academics after that, with cultural programming added only in the 1960s. Riverside is one of four such boarding schools the government still runs, enrolling students of dozens of nations in grades four through twelve.

What the plaque says

Riverside School Begun by U.S. Quaker Agents, 1871 This school opened at the Indian agency on Sugar Creek with 8 pupils. A new building was erected as a boarding school in 1872, for Wichita and Caddo children. Fire in 1878 destroyed the school. It soon reopened in a new building here on the Washita and continues as the oldest boarding school in the United States Indian service. Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission. 1970

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southern Plains Indian Museum — 1.7 mi
  A free federal museum in Anadarko, open since the late 1940s, showing the clothing, shields, cradleboards and art of the Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, Caddo, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Delaware and Apache nations.

More markers nearby

• Fort Cobb — 11 mi
• Battle of the Wichita Village — 27 mi
• Run of '89 South Boundary — 28 mi