Stewart Indian School Inches Closer to Becoming Museum and Cultural Center

Since at least the 1980s, many have dreamed of one day turning some portion of the former Stewart Indian School site in Carson City into some kind of Native American cultural center.

Despite a couple of previous attempts and false starts, it appears those plans will finally become a reality later this year or early next year when work is completed on restoration of the school’s former administration building into a museum and cultural center.

The project, more than 20 years in the making, is the result of a $5.7 million state appropriation and, along with some other restoration of buildings on the school site, represents the first phase of the Stewart Indian School Living Legacy.

Walking the green, shaded grounds of the former school, it’s difficult not to think about the irony that such a beautiful setting was once associated with a particularly ugly American public policy.

Stewart was founded in 1890 to educate Native American children in the customs and culture of the majority white America. As the National Park Service noted in a website description of the school, “children from Nevada and throughout the West were forced to attend the Stewart Institute up to secondary school age.

“The school was intended to teach basic trades and to assimilate young American Indians into mainstream American culture. Assimilation policies such as prohibition of speaking native languages and practicing native customs anguished both students and their parents.”

As a result, the early history of Stewart is one involving forcing Native American children to give up their culture and heritage.

The creation of the Stewart Indian School can be traced to the 1880s when Nevada's Superintendent of Public Instruction, C.S. Young, recommended to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Nevada State Legislature that an Indian industrial school be established because most of the state's Native Americans were not being formally educated.

The Nevada State Legislature passed legislation in 1887 that established an Indian school and authorized the issuing of bonds for the facility, provided the federal government agreed to operate the school.

Nevada's U.S. Senator William Stewart guided the appropriate federal legislation to approval, including congressional funding, and the Clear Creek Indian Training School, as it was originally known, was built by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on 240 acres on Snyder Avenue south of Carson City.

Later, the school was named for Senator Stewart (it was called a number of names over the years, including the Carson Indian School, the Stewart Institute and, finally, the Stewart Indian School) and officially opened on December 17, 1890.

Records indicate that on opening day, the school had a superintendent (W.D.C. Gibson), three teachers and 37 students from the Paiute, Washo and Shoshone tribes. Within a month, additional students were added, bringing the co-educational enrollment to 91 by January 1, 1891.

The school was operated much like a strict military school in its first decades. Historic photos show that students wore military-style uniforms.  Academic classes consumed about half of each day, followed by vocational training in such skills as sewing, shoe and harness making, blacksmithing, carpentry, printing and other work.

In 1934, the federal government changed its policy regarding the school from forced assimilation to one more tolerant of tribal languages and customs. In later decades, the Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraged the speaking of native tongues and the celebration of native cultures.

Almost from the school’s beginning, athletics were a popular aspect of the campus. While relatively small in size, the school managed to win several state championships, including a 1916 state football title, seven consecutive state "AA" cross country championships in the 1970s and the 1966 state "A" basketball championship.

Over the years, the school's band, organized in 1896, performed at parades and events throughout the state and in competitions, including a National Music Festival in Long Beach, California, in 1940.

The school was also responsible for producing Nevada's first Native American newspaper, "The Indian Advance," which was published in 1899.

In addition to educating Nevada's Native Americans (who were actually a minority of those who attended the school), the Stewart facility housed Native Americans from throughout the country including children of the Hopi, Apache, Pima, Mohave, Ute and Tewa tribes.

In fact, in the late 1940s, the school became part of a special program for Navajos and by the mid-50s, most of the students were of Navajo descent.

The school was finally closed in 1980, when the federal government decided to phase out Indian boarding schools. The land was sold to the state of Nevada, which restored several of the buildings for various state offices.

Visiting the campus, the first thing you notice about the dozens of buildings scattered about the campus is their unique architecture. Built with walls of rough-cut, multi-colored native stones quarried from the Carson River, which are imbedded in dark mortar, the buildings have a kind of "homemade" feel.

According to historical reports, the so-called "Stewart Indian School" architecture was a style borrowed in the early 1920s by then-superintendent Frederick Snyder, who had admired a church of similar design in Arizona.

The first building of this design was the former Administrative Building, which was completed in 1923. Eventually more than 100 buildings utilizing the stone architecture were constructed on the school grounds, most built by stonemasons trained at the school.

Today, visitors can explore or picnic on the school grounds, which are open to the public.

North Fork: Photogenic Ruins and the Ghost of Bing Crosby

Travelers heading to Idaho on State Route 225 often don’t even notice the former community North Folk, a once-thriving stage station.

Located about 50 miles north of Elko, North Folk was established in 1870 as a stage stop with food and lodging for travelers. Within two decades, others had moved to the area to establish cattle ranches and North Folk—so named because it’s near the north fork of the Humboldt River—could boast some 75 residents.

By the early 1890s, North Folk had grown to a population of about 122 as well as a post office, a small hotel, a saloon, a grocery store, and a school (which hosted dances and other events). According to several histories, in the late 1890s the stage line ran from Elko to North Folk and on to the mining town of Gold Creek, which was located about 20 miles to the northeast.

Ranching continued to provide a good living for residents into the 20^th century. But the growing popularity of the automobile made the stage line obsolete and, despite the opening of a service station in the 1920s, North Folk itself began to fade as well.

Starting in the 1940s, many of the local ranches began to be sold to larger outfits that combined them into much larger holdings. In 1944, the post office closed for good and the community was largely abandoned.

Time and elements took a toll on the few stone and wooden structures so that today the original townsite consists of a handful of foundations, a couple of crumbling stone walls and a wooden structure that is gradually melting into the sagebrush. Adjacent are several newer structures and homes.

Wandering through the high grass and sage, one will find the picturesque stone wall ruins, which appear to have once been a commercial business, and, slightly to the north, a dilapidated wooden cabin or home. The latter is made of sturdy logs and still has a portion of its roof intact.

About five miles south of North Fork is the Lawson Ranch, a 3,000-acre cattle operation once owned by singer Bing Crosby. The property, which includes its own airstrip and hanger, has enough grazing land for 600 head of cattle.

It also includes a 5,000 square foot, five-bedroom, five-bath main house (currently a bed and breakfast) as well as three guest houses, two large hay barns, a heated repair shop and an equipment enclosure. There is also an old homestead on the property, which dates to the 1860s.

Crosby acquired the ranch—one of seven properties he owned in Elko County—in the mid-1940s when he became enamored with the region. For many years, he would spend summers at the ranch, then called the PX Ranch, with his wife and four sons.

During the next decade and a half, Crosby was a regular visitor to his ranches and Elko. In 1948, he was named honorary mayor of Elko and honored with the key to the city.

Several historians note that Crosby originally hoped his sons would embrace the ranching lifestyle and take over the operation but eventually realized none were interested.

Following the death of his wife, Dixie Lee, in 1952, Crosby’s interest in his Elko properties began to wane and, in 1958, he sold them and never returned to Elko. Historian Shawn Hall, who has written extensively about Elko County, noted that Crosby did, however, remain in touch with many of the friends he made during his years as an Elko-area resident—and he was still honorary mayor of Elko when he died in 1977.

Tunnel Camp Boasts Short Life But Long History

While some of Nevada’s mining camps were bestowed with elegant or optimistic names, such as Belmont (meaning “beautiful mountain”) or Midas (named for the legendary king with the golden touch), Tunnel Camp’s name was pretty literal. It had a tunnel.

Tunnel Camp is located about 14 miles north of Lovelock. To reach it, head into the town of Lovelock, then head north on Western Avenue (State Route 854) for about a mile. Turn north on Sand Hill Avenue and continue another 1.5 miles. Turn west on Pitt Road (State Route 399) for 11.9 miles, then turn right onto a dirt road leading into the camp ruins.

According to ghost town historian Stanley Paher, Tunnel Camp (originally just called Tunnel or New Seven Troughs) was developed in 1927 when the Nevada State Mining Company formed to build a cyanide mill and dig a tunnel into the shafts of the old Seven Troughs mining district.

The idea, similar to that of Sutro Tunnel near Virginia City, was to tunnel about two-and-a-half miles (horizontally) into the old mines to drain water and allow for easier hauling of the rock and ore.

To support this effort, a company town formed, which boasted more than two-dozen buildings including a store, bunkhouse, powerhouse, bathhouse, and several homes.

The project initially showed potential as the tunnel encountered several gold veins but then bogged down when the company realized the tunnel’s alignment was askew and correcting the problem proved cost prohibitive.

As a result, the company decided to abandon the camp in 1934. Small scale mining restarted later in the 30s and again in the 1950s but Tunnel proved to be more of a money pit than a golden opportunity.

According to several historians, Tunnel Camp never became a true town but was always more of a “well-equipped” company camp. Some of its structures, in fact, were relocated from another, older mining town, Vernon, which was about two miles to the south and east.

According to former Nevada State Mining Engineer Hugh Shamberger, who authored nearly a dozen exhaustively-researched books about various Nevada mining towns, in early 1929, after reaching a length of about 7,500-feet, the tunnel’s diggers realized they’re calculations were off so they dropped back several hundred feet to compensate.

By November, when they had reached 10,000-feet, they intersected several ore bodies and began digging drifts to follow the veins. However, after tunneling another 1,000-feet, they discovered they had not dug the tunnel at the proper angle so they failed to reach the proper level of most of the old mines. The project proved to be an expensive failure, according to Shamberger.

Despite the camp’s dismal past, a visit to Tunnel Camp is worthwhile. Apparently, people resided in the area until about a decade or so ago so some of the buildings are fairly well-preserved.

An old miner’s house is largely intact (albeit with no windows and decaying wooden flooring) as is the impressive brick powerhouse. Several other wooden structures, also in fairly good condition, are scattered around the hillside, which affords views of the beautiful (and appropriately-named) surrounding Sage Valley.

Peeking through the sagebrush and high grasses are concrete foundations and other reminders of the camp’s rich but short history.

About two miles southeast of the camp site is a small cemetery with wooden markers that appears to be maintained by locals. During a recent visit, Mardi Gras beads festooned the graves along with artificial flowers and other objects.