Prairie Rose Seminole works to digitize records of the Bismarck Indian School on Jan. 3, 2025, at the National Archives in Kansas City, Mo. (Photo provided by Dennis J. Neumann via the North Dakota Monitor)
(Erin Hemme Froslie – North Dakota Monitor) – Researchers are digitizing historical records from a Native American boarding school in Bismarck, aiming to bring information closer to the communities affected by its existence.
“There’s a hunger to understand this part of our history, to better understand the boarding school era,” said Prairie Rose Seminole, who is part of the team working on the project.
The Bismarck Indian School operated from 1907 to 1937. Most of its students came from Native American reservations in North Dakota. Its records, however, are in the National Archives in Kansas City, Missouri, 600 miles away.
The collection includes boxes of financial records and reports, official correspondence, personnel and staff information, and student records and correspondence. Each piece reveals something about the residential boarding school experience, researchers said.
