Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School

About this property

The Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, was established by an act of the United States Congress in 1891. This provided funding for creation of an education system of off-reservation boarding schools and vocational training centers to educate Native American children. It was extending a model developed and practiced first at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which opened in 1879 and was directed by Richard Henry Pratt, an Army officer. The cornerstone of the first of eleven buildings that would make up the boarding school's campus was placed in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people from across the state on October 18, 1892. As part of the crowd's celebration, they congregated in the town of Mount Pleasant, Michigan and paraded to the school grounds some distance away in farmland. The Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons was on hand to lead in the "ancient ritual" of laying the cornerstone. The Grand Chaplain led the crowd in a Christian prayer to bless the school and all those that would reside there. What then was known as the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School started as a small school authorized by the federal government and operated by a mission of the United Methodist Church. It had previously been known as the "farm school", as it was developed in the middle of farmland outside of Mount Pleasant. Located in Isabella County, it was near the Isabella Indian Reservation of the federally recognized Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Nation. In 1892, construction began of the first school building of the new school dedicated to educating Native American children. October 18, 1892, dedication ceremonies for the main building took place and on January 3, 1893, the eight-classroom building opened to the first seventeen students. By June 1893, enrollment had increased significantly. In the coming years, the school expanded, building additional structures to accommodate all of the students and their daily activities. There were separate boys and girls dormitories, a hospital, a woodworking and blacksmith shop; a building for industrial training, a dining hall, a clubhouse for employees of the school, and several farm buildings. In 1910 the school built a new gymnasium. Adjacent to the school was an "Indian Cemetery", which is still visible today. Native American children from all over the State of Michigan, along with children from Alaska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York were forced to the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School. It had an average enrollment of more than 300 students annually for many of the years it was open.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Isabella County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Isabella County.

More historic places in Michigan

Browse all historic places in Michigan.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Michigan history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.