Whirlwind Mission

Among those who served the mission was David Pendleton Oakerhater, a Cheyenne (Tsistsistas) warrior called O-kuh-ha-tuh, or Making Medicine, who was captured in the Indian Wars and imprisoned at Fort Marion, Florida, in 1875. Educated at an Episcopal parish in Paris Hill, New York, he was ordained a deacon in 1881 and returned to serve in Oklahoma. He worked at Whirlwind until he retired from it in 1918, and died in Watonga in 1931. In 1985 he became the first Native American Anglican the Episcopal Church named a saint. Whirlwind Mission of the Holy Family continues in Watonga.

What the plaque says

Whirlwind Mission At This Location A day school opened here in 1897 for Cheyenne children was named for the friendly Chief Whirlwind. In 1904 to 1917, it was a well known mission school under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Oklahoma Historical Society, 1960

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stafford Air & Space Museum — 14 mi
  Weatherford's museum for its astronaut son, Thomas P. Stafford, grown from an airport display case into 75,000 square feet of flight beside I-40 and old Route 66.
• Roman Nose State Park — 17 mi
  A canyon of gypsum cliffs and three springs north of Watonga, one of Oklahoma's first seven state parks, named for Henry Roman Nose, a Cheyenne chief who survived Fort Marion.
• Oklahoma Route 66 Museum — 27 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum of the road in Clinton, decade by decade from the 1926 designation through the Dust Bowl and the war to the 1950s diner.

More markers nearby

• Civilian Conservation Corps and Roman Nose State Park — 17 mi
• Cantonment — 22 mi