 HistoryThe mission, part of a complex of buildings, was built in 1847. It was operated as a boarding school for children of the Potawatomi Indians, an eastern tribe which had been forced west by the federal government in the 1830s. Native children struggled to adapt to a strange new way of life. School enrollment fluctuated from week to week. Disease often struck students and teachers. Because a branch of the Oregon 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 Potawatomi Mission features exhibits on the first floor and modern classrooms and conference rooms on the second and third floors. |
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