Period Room

Explore how a mission classroom might have appeared in the 1850s Period Room with hearth, desks, and cooking utensils.

Exhibits

See original items from the mission including a crucifix, bits of crockery, and pieces from the mission blacksmith. Learn about contemporary Potawatomi people. Follow the story of the mission from boarding school, horse barn, to conference facility.

About the Mission

Native children struggled to adapt to a strange new way of life. School entollment fluctuated from week to week. Disease often struck students and teachers. Because a branch of the Oregon-California Trail passed by the mission, it was almost impossible to keep hired hands from leaving the mission and heading west.

After the mission closed in 1861, it was used as a barn for many years until the state acquired the property in 1974. Still standing in its original location, the Koch Industries Education Center in the Potawatomi Mission features exhibits on the first floor and modern classrooms and conference rooms on the second and third floors.