Chilocco Indian Agricultural School
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Chilocco Indian Agricultural School
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One of the abandoned buildings at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, a school for Native Americans that operated from 1884 to 1980 located approximately 20 miles north of Ponca City, Oklahoma.
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| Location | US 77 and E0018 Rd., Newkirk, Oklahoma |
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| Coordinates | 36°59′6″N 97°3′45″W / 36.98500°N 97.06250°WCoordinates: 36°59′6″N 97°3′45″W / 36.98500°N 97.06250°W |
| Area | 288 acres (117 ha) |
| Architect | Bidwell, Edmund; Pauley, Hoyland & Smith |
| Architectural style | Romanesque, Colonial Revival, et al. |
| NRHP Reference # | 06000792 |
| Added to NRHP | September 08, 2006 |
Chilocco Indian School was an agricultural school for Native Americans located in north-central Oklahoma from 1884 to 1980. It was located approximately 20 miles north of Ponca City, Oklahoma and seven miles north of Newkirk, Oklahoma, near the Kansas border. The name "Chilocco" is apparently derived from a Muscogee word meaning "big deer" or horse.
The U.S. Congress in 1882 authorized the creation of five non-reservation boarding schools. Chilocco was one of the five which also included Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, Chemawa Indian School in Oregon, and Fort Simcoe in Washington. Major James M. Haworth, first Superintendent of Indian Schools, selected a site for the school along Chilocco Creek. Chilocco was located in the Cherokee Outlet or Cherokee Strip and the Cherokee provided 8,640 acres (35 km2) of land to help Chilocco fulfill its mandate for agricultural education.
Chilocco provided academic and vocational education to American Indian students from all tribes in the United States. The objective of the school was to integrate and assimilate American Indians into the mainstream of American life. Until the 1930s, the school relied on a highly structured and strict military regime. Students "remember twenty-two bugle calls a day, Government-issue uniforms, scanty meals, inadequate health care, and a paucity of individual attention." The school was "home and haven to some, reformatory and prison to others." Instruction focused mostly on vocational training rather than academic subjects and students were required to perform manual and domestic labor known as "actual work." Students were required to attend Christian religious services once a week.
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