The museum opened on September 14, 2002, in a building of cypress logs donated from Florida; a delegation of Seminole elders made the trip to bless the site and the timber at the groundbreaking. Its stated mission is to preserve Haskell's history and to raise awareness of the truth about the American Indian boarding school experience, and it does not soften that history.
The school that opened here in 1884 was built, in the museum's words, to forcibly assimilate tribal children. Its account describes children as young as three or four taken from their families, hair cut short on arrival, a mourning practice in many of their nations, tribal languages and prayer forbidden, students made to labor to keep the school running, and a campus jail used from 1910 to 1933, with fruit cellars used for punishment before it. In 1926 a football stadium and a memorial arch were dedicated, paid for entirely by donations from American Indian people, and the three-day celebration drew more than 200,000 visitors. The change came in 1933, when Henry Roe Cloud, a Ho-Chunk man from Nebraska and a Yale graduate, became the first Native superintendent and began bringing traditional arts into the school.
The permanent exhibits trace Haskell from boarding school to tribal university, and rotating galleries show work by Native artists, often Haskell students. The garden outside was planted after the museum opened with a grant from the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. The campus cemetery is not open to visitors; relatives of those buried there can arrange a visit through the president's office.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour