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Wind River Boarding School

The first school on the reservation opened in 1871, with James I. Patten serving as the first teacher.  But the school never took root during that first decade, mainly because of resistance by Shoshone parents to formal white education.  Nonetheless, an educational complex gradually emerged during the mid-1880s, with the Reverend John Roberts, an Episcopal priest, serving as the first superintendent.  The first permanent school house was built of adobe and was constantly plagued with structural failures as a result of the materials used and poor construction techniques.  The first students tended to be the offspring of whites who had married Shoshone women and lived on the reservation, but by the 1890s, approximately 150 to 175 Arapaho and Shoshone boys and girls boarded at the school on an annual basis.  The images below represent a cross-section of students and teachers from the 1880s into the 1930s.  Unfortunately, however, few of the individuals in these pictures have been identified.

The first image in row 1, below left, is an early photo of the students and teachers of the Wind River Boarding School.  Standing at left is the Reverend Sherman Coolidge, an Arapaho.  Seated among the students at the far right is the Reverend John Roberts, who first came to Wind River in 1883.

Wind River Boarding School,  1883-1885 Wind River Boarding School, 1883-1885   John Robers & Shoshone Episcopal Mission  1883-1885   Wind River Boarding School, 1885-1895 Wind River Boading School, c. 1904, J.E. Stimson photo   Teachers, c. 1910 Teacher Picnic, c.1910   Kitchen duty, c.1935   School boys at work, c. 1935 School girls & loom beadwork, c. 1935 School Boys at Hot Springs, c. 1935   Sewing class, c.1935

Images of Fort Washakie     J.K. Moore Trading Post     Wind River School
  Indian Life  Wind River Sundance