This scenic view is of the lagoon on the grounds of the Phoenix Indian School, located on the northeast corner of Indian School Road and Central Avenue. The school opened in 1891 and was one of the country’s first off-reservation boarding schools, established by the federal government to further a policy of assimilating Native American children into American society through education. (The first was the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania). It sat on a 160-acre parcel of land that was purchased for $9,000 ($6,000 came from the federal government and $3,000 from the citizens of Phoenix).

The school originally was set up for primary through 10th grade. Later, no matter what the grade level, the admitting age was 14 through 20, and students signed-up to attend for a period of three years or to the age of 21.

Students spent half of the eight-hour day in academic work and the other half in vocational training. Girls were taught sewing, millinery, cooking, laundering, nursing and general housecleaning. Boys were taught agriculture, animal husbandry, blacksmithing, engineering, various construction trades, printing, tailoring, wheelwriting and shoemaking.

By the turn-of-the-century, the school’s enrollment had grown to nearly 700 students from 23 tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Oregon. There were 14 brick and 20 frame buildings, including a large schoolhouse, a two-story building for employee living quarters, a student dining hall, a large six-room shop for vocational training and several student dormitories.

In 1904, the year this photograph was taken, the school had become an important part of the Phoenix community. It was the terminus for the city’s 3rd Street streetcar. When Phoenix residents took rides out to the country in a buggy or on a bike, the school was the turn-around point for their trip back to town.

On Sundays, the school grounds were open to city residents for band concerts given by the Indian School Brass Band, poetry readings or student exhibits. The school also had a 52-piece marching band that played in off-campus parades, a top-notch rifle drill team and a football team that always played in the big annual game against Phoenix Union High School.

With its landscaped grounds and entertainment facilities, the school quickly attracted residential neighborhoods. James H. McClintock, former Phoenix Postmaster and state historian, described the school: “One of the most impressive sights is…at the school at sundown, just before the trumpet sounds ‘retreat’, when 600 student’s hands rise to their owners’ caps while facing the stars and stripes and proclaim their allegiance to ‘one flag, one country, one language.’” Barry Goldwater also told a story of his mother gathering her children each evening and going to the school to watch the lowering of the flag.

At its peak in 1935, the school had 975 pupils and was the largest off-reservation school in the country (the Carlisle School had closed in 1917). The school grounds contained 56 buildings, including a tuberculosis sanatorium, and covered 249 acres. Students raised hogs and cattle and grew vegetables on the school grounds. A dairy farm and a pasteurization plant were also added over the years.

The school was considered a showplace for federal Indian assimilation policy until the 1960s, when the civil rights movement began to force a reassessment of government policies toward minorities. Tribal governments began to assert their independence and to emphasize Indian cultural heritage in education. Fewer and fewer students chose to study off the reservation. In 1988, by an act of Congress, President Reagan closed the school and passed its administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the National Park Service.

The city of Phoenix initially tried to acquire the property, but a Florida land development company offered to trade the Bureau of Land Management $100 million and some Florida swamp land for the property. In 1996, the city was able to obtain the land through a three-way land exchange between the Florida land developer, Baron Collier Company, and the federal government.

Today, the school grounds have been transformed into the Steele Indian School Park. Three of the school’s historic buildings remain: the Memorial Hall built in 1922 to honor the students who fought in WWI; the band building, which was originally the elementary school, built in 1933; and the dining hall built in 1901. In addition to these historic buildings, the park includes a 15-acre garden and neighborhood park with a playground, basketball and volleyball courts, and an outdoor amphitheater, which is located across from a 2.5-acre bird-shaped lake.

— Arizona Capitol Times archive and Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department Archives. Photo courtesy Arizona Historical Society, Lewis Family Collection.