(July 17, 2022) – After the completion of its military duties, Fort Totten was selected for use as a boarding school for children from the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Tribes. In January of 1891 the Fort Totten School was opened with seventeen workers and a contingent of nuns who acted as preparatory teachers and nurses. At this time the U.S. Government had undergone a shift in its relationship with American Indians. As an alternative to continual warfare, the government sought to assimilate Native Americans through education. With this in mind, the boarding school maintained three goals: to instruct the students in the English language, to provide the students with practical job skills, especially in agriculture, and finally to instruct the students in U.S. democracy. In addition to their schoolwork students participated in a wide variety of extra-curricular activities, including plays, track and basketball, even winning the state basketball championship in 1931. The school’s band was highly sought after for public performances and in 1893 the band performed at the World’s Fair in Chicago.
Although the school was originally established to separate American Indian children from their cultural heritage, the government eventually reconsidered its plan and closed the school in 1935. Five years later, Fort Totten was once again opened as a school, but this time as the Fort Totten Community School, a day school for local elementary and high school students.
After nineteen additional years instructing American Indian youth, Fort Totten permanently ended its days as a schoolhouse and was acquired by the State Historical Society of North Dakota in 1960 as a State Historic Site.
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