Still on the road, still on the East side of the Missouri River north of Crow Creek and Chamberlain. If you asked me I would not have been able to answer the question, "What is the state capital of South Dakota?" Now I know. The ancestral lands of this place were where powerful Plains groups such as Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota lived and long before them the Arikara people farmed the land and lived in palisade forts.
They call it a city, but Pierre, SD only has a population of about 15k. It is the 2nd smallest state capital after Vermont (I'll leave you'all to answer that one). It is near the center of the state (settler boundaries), and like many other places in this state, with disregard of the ancient or original peoples, named this place after a colonial white fur trader of French origin. By the 19th center the Mighty Muddy Missouri River had trade routes and Forts all along its banks. When the highways came, Pierre wasn't on the interstate highway system, so it is fairly isolated Nothing much happening here except...
Yes indeed they did! The Pierre Indian Learning Center is an off reservation boarding school. Started in 1888 in the territory that became South Dakota. The original name Pierre Indian School on approximately 180 acres, was to be an industrial school. It operated this way for the next 80+ years. The shift came in 1972, in which the focus was to be on the "special needs" in the Indian communities (homelessness, social maladjustment, absenteeism, truancy), which in this case were students with behavioral problems. Control of the school shifted to the Bureau of Indian Education, and it became an "alternative boarding school" serving 15 Tribes across SD, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
Also, Pierre Indian Learning Center faced significant issues with student treatment, leading to settlements like one for a wrongful death in 2017, highlighting systemic problems.
One person's perspective, one (or more) lawsuits, but there is currently a facebook page and glowing reports can be found on it.
This photo is from covid times (2020-2021), but gives a small window inside the facility.
In 1896, the US government began acquiring land for a boarding school in the rural valley west of Rapid City. At the time, the city was growing from a small mining camp to a regional trade center. By 1900, the population was just over 2,000 people. Like federal boarding schools across the United States the Rapid City Indian School sought to assimilate Native children into mainstream American society.
In 1929 and 1930, the school closed due to a tuberculosis outbreak and served as a temporary sanitarium. The school reopened briefly but was closed for good in 1933.
After the school closed, the campus was converted to a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp. Between 1933 and 1939, the CCC and the Works Progress Administration conducted extensive renovations that created the buildings, landscape, and general aesthetic that would characterize the main campus into the 2020s.
Sioux San became part of the Indian Health Service in 1955.
In South Dakota at Rapid City Indian School, researchers and lawyers representing the local Native American community and tribes spent years talking to descendants and poring over historical documents to find their lost children. They now believe that many of the 50 students who died are buried on a hillside near the former school. But the group decided not to exhume them. They have preserved the area as sacred and plan to build a memorial. This school operates as a boarding school; it serves grades k-8; only students with a certified degree of Indian blood. The families these children come from have been characterized as "unstable." Some of the students who attending have been unsuccessful at 6-7 other schools.
The Pierre Indian School, which opened in 1891, was a federal boarding school located on the outskirts of South Dakota’s capital. At the junction of the Lower Brule, Crow Creek, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud Reservations, the school still stands today as the Pierre Indian Learning Center. While today the learning center serves to educate, for almost a century, it was designed to dismantle, destroy, and dilute Native American culture to the point of extinction.
The perpetuation of Native American mistreatment, trauma, abuse, and cultural genocide stems from the development of the Indian Boarding School System. One of the first of these boarding schools was Pierre. During the school’s 83 years under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, students were given lashings with open safety pins secured to wet towels, made to hold bricks with open palms until their arms gave out, forced to kneel in the name of God, under threat of his punishment, until their knees bled. The children who attended, some as young as 5 years old, left as shells of their former selves.
The campus is shrouded by tree cover and is fenced in. No one was around and despite the well worn sign welcoming me, I did not feel comfortable going in. I took my photos and drove on.
Records were made of Indian Agent visits from the early days:
This microfilm publication from the National Archives contains reports prepared by inspectors
for the Indian Service and submitted to the Office of Indian Affairs. Inspectors for the Indian
Service were first appointed July 1, 1873, under the provision of an act of February 14, 1873 (17
Stat. 463). The 1873 act required each agency to be visited by an inspector at least once a year,
preferably twice a year by alternate inspectors. The inspectors investigated all matters pertaining
to the conditions of the Indians and the extent to which they adopted white civilization,
reservation boundaries, the use of reservation lands, the state of industry, the character and
abilities of the agent and other employees, school conditions, the state of agency fiscal records,
and enforcement or violation of the law.
From the Fall of 2023 American Studies course at Dickinson College:
The perpetuation of Native American mistreatment, trauma, abuse, and cultural genocide stems from the development of the Indian Boarding School System. One of the first of these boarding schools was Pierre. During the school’s 83 years under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, students were given lashings with open safety pins secured to wet towels, made to hold bricks with open palms until their arms gave out, forced to kneel in the name of God, under threat of his punishment, until their knees bled. The children who attended, some as young as 5 years old, left as shells of their former selves.
I continued North to next stop, Rapid City South Dakota. A seriously much larger place than most I had been to since Minneapolis. I had read quite a bit about this place.
In 1929 and 1930, the school closed due to a tuberculosis outbreak and served as a temporary sanitarium. The school reopened briefly but was closed for good in 1933.
After the school closed, the campus was converted to a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp. Between 1933 and 1939, the CCC and the Works Progress Administration conducted extensive renovations that created the buildings, landscape, and general aesthetic that would characterize the main campus into the 2020s.
Sioux San became part of the Indian Health Service in 1955.
Not only did it have an Indian Boarding School, but there had recently been press about the children's memorial being erected on what is now being called a sacred site. A site where dead children were buried vs. sending them back to their home and kin. A site that has 50 recorded child deaths that previously was not known to the public. Seven children are unnamed and seven grave locations are unknown. Some deaths have causes, like the common cause of death in these schools= disease. However, others don't have a cause listed.
From the Washington Post's Investigation and pretty scathing report in 12/2024 an extensive list of 3,104 students who died in Indian Boarding Schools was formulated, and Rapid City Indian School is on that list:
In 1909, over 10 boys ran away in less than a year. During the 35 years the school was in operation, several students attempted to run away. Most were caught relatively quickly, and those caught were punished harshly. Students who ran away were subjected to unpaid labor for the entirety of the summer break, and some were recorded to have been kept in jail cells.
The above site explains about the memorial project and also the history of the school. A bit from the site:
The project addresses multiple interconnected needs: the lack of public knowledge about the federal Indian boarding school system; the continued marginalization of Indigenous histories and voices; unresolved grief and trauma within Indigenous communities; and deep social divisions in Rapid City rooted in historic and ongoing land dispossession. These needs demand a response that is not only tangible but also active, inclusive, and ongoing.
From South Dakota Searchlight
This photo is from circa 1925-27 with the school buildings in the background.
The next 2 photos are of a dormitory at the school
A winter count on a buffalo hide from the Remembering the Children Exhibit. Winter counts are a traditional way for plains tribes to depict and remember significant events from the year. This winter count depicts a year spent away. (Photo by Amelia Schafer, ICT/Rapid City Journal)
All that remains of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School is the horse barn, the root cellar, unmarked graves and the memory of what once happened there.
After the school closed in 1935 it was converted to a segregated Indian tuberculosis Sanatorium. You can still make out the rest of the word on the above photo. In the 1960's this site became an Indigenous/Oyate Health Care Center
There is an excellent documentary as well as a website on this site. The documentary, is called "Remember the Children," and is by Oglala Lakota filmmaker Jim Warne:
Rapid City Unveils Indian Boarding School Memorial: A Step Toward Healing
This article was from 6/10/2025 and I was there in the beginning of July 2025
The unveiling was the realization of over a decades worth of work by activists. The sculpture itself was worked on by over 100 people!
The exhibit is called "Tiwahe," which means "family" in Lakota. The 7 foot tall bronze sculpture depicts a Lakota family surrounding a young boy who is dressed in a boarding school uniform (this particular school was run very much in line with a military school). The Tiwahe sculpture was created in collaboration with local artist Dale Lamphere and Indigenous artists, with mentorship provided by Lamphere.
Remembering the Children continues building memorial
I found myself talking to my mule deer friend and I felt they were listening. They certainly didn't run away. It was odd to encounter only one deer. The hillside area is pretty barren + there were no other deer in sight. I felt like mule deer was a messenger. It may take me years to understand the message sent that day.
One last sad look at the "coming soon" sign, and a silent send up of "I'm Sorry" juju into the universe, and I headed on to the next school site.
This article was from 6/10/2025 and I was there in the beginning of July 2025
The unveiling was the realization of over a decades worth of work by activists. The sculpture itself was worked on by over 100 people!
The memorial site is located on a 25-acre plot of land that includes the unmarked graves of these children. Plans for the site include a walking path with boulders displaying the names of the children, ceremonial scaffolds, and sweat lodges, all designed to provide a space for reflection, healing, and cultural practices.
I foolishly thought that the site was open since it had a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the past. The park has public events as progress is made. There is much more to come (walking paths, sculptures, boulders marking children deaths).
There was one other living sentient being that hung around the entire time I paused and rooted my feet into this sacred and sad place.
Remembering the Children continues building memorial
