Fort Sill Indian School was an American Indian boarding school near Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma, United States. [1] [2] The school opened in 1871, with 24 students in the first year, had 300 students in the 1970s, and closed in 1980 although "Native students and administrators, alumni, and Indian leaders fought tenaciously to keep the school alive when the BIA announced its imminent closure". It was founded by Quakers but became nonsectarian in 1891. [3]
Building 309 of the school is recorded on the National Register of Historic Places, #73001559. [4] [5]
The British Museum holds a collection of 91 photographs taken in the 1990s identified as "Photographs taken for a news story for the Daily Oklahoman on the planned re-opening of the school as a Native American College". [6]
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ is a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Comanche County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 121,125, making it the fifth-most populous county in Oklahoma. Its county seat is Lawton. The county was created in 1901 as part of Oklahoma Territory. It was named for the Comanche tribal nation.
Anadarko is a city in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The city is fifty miles (80.5 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. The population was 5,745 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Caddo County.
Lawton is a city in and the county seat of Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in southwestern Oklahoma, approximately 87 mi (140 km) southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton, Oklahoma, metropolitan statistical area. According to the 2020 census, Lawton's population was 90,381, making it the sixth-largest city in the state, and the largest in Western Oklahoma.
Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as an eight-year-old child and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Cynthia Ann Parker, Naduah, Narua, or Preloch, was a woman who was captured by a Comanche band during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836, where several of her relatives were killed. She was taken with several of her family members, including her younger brother John Richard Parker. Parker was later adopted into the tribe and had three children with a chief. Twenty-four years later she was relocated and taken captive by Texas Rangers, at approximately age 33, and unwillingly forced to separate from her sons and conform to European-American society. Her Comanche name means "was found" or "someone found" in English.
Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (137 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost 94,000 acres (38,000 ha).
Charles Joyce Chibitty was a Native American and United States Army code talker in World War II, who helped transmit coded messages in the Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ) language on the battlefield as a radio operator in the European Theater of the war.
The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma is the federally recognized Native American tribe of Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache in Oklahoma.
Comanche Nation College was a two-year, open admissions, American Indian tribal college. It was located in Lawton, Oklahoma, the capital of the Comanche Nation. The school was chartered in 2002 by the Comanche Nation Business Committee. Comanche Nation College operated until July 31, 2017.
Fort Cobb was a United States Army post established in what is now Caddo County, Oklahoma in 1859 to protect relocated Native Americans from raids by the Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. The fort was abandoned by Maj. William H. Emory at the beginning of the Civil War, but then occupied by Confederate forces from 1861–1862. The post was eventually reoccupied by US forces starting in 1868. After establishing Fort Sill the US Army abandoned Fort Cobb. Today there is little left of the former military post.
Lawrie Tatum was a Quaker who was best known as an Indian Agent to the Kiowa and Comanche tribes at Fort Sill agency in Indian Territory.
Olle Emanuel Nordmark was a Swedish painter and muralist born in Nordanholen at Mockfjärd parish. He was focused on an art career from an early age. After emigrating in 1924 to the United States to gain more work opportunities, he lived there for 40 years. Living mostly in New York City, he produced numerous murals and frescos for private commissions. In 1964, he immigrated to France, where he lived until his death.
David Emmett Williams was a Native American painter, who was Kiowa/Tonkawa/Kiowa-Apache from Oklahoma. He studied with Dick West at Bacone College and won numerous national awards for his paintings. He painted in the Flatstyle technique that was taught at Bacone from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Doris Littrell (1929–2020) was a gallerist from central Oklahoma who promoted Native American art.
Southern Plains Indian Museum is a Native American museum located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. It was opened in 1948 under a cooperative governing effort by the United States Department of the Interior and the Oklahoma state government. The museum features cultural and artistic works from Oklahoma tribal peoples of the Southern Plains region, including the Caddo, Chiricahua Apache, Comanche, Delaware Nation, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Southern Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, and Wichita.
Ketch Ranch House or Ketch Ranch was private property located in the Wichita Mountains of Southwestern Oklahoma. During the early 1920s, the forest reserve residence was established as a working ranch and vacation home for Ada May Ketch and Frank Levant Ketch who served as mayor of Ringling, Oklahoma.
Joyce Lee "Doc" Tate Nevaquaya was a Comanche flute player and painter from Apache, Oklahoma. He is known for his contribution to the Native American flute music. His efforts in learning how to make Comanche flutes and play as well as compose contemporary Comanche flute music is considered to have saved the declining art from being lost completely. However, he said he considered himself a painter first, and painting was his primary art throughout his life.
Apache Casino Hotel or Fort Sill Apache Casino is operated and owned by the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. The casino and hotel is located within Comanche County bearing east of Interstate 44 in Lawton, Oklahoma. In January 1999, the Native American gaming establishment was introduced to Southwestern Oklahoma within the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation lands. The Apache gaming enterprise originated as a membrane structure or tension fabric building housing Class II or Class III casino gaming and slot machines.
Blockhouse on Signal Mountain is within the Fort Sill Military Reservation, north of Lawton, Oklahoma. The rock architecture is located along Mackenzie Hill Road within the Fort Sill West Range being the Oklahoma administrative division of Comanche County.