11 Most Endangered
Wheelock Academy
Year Listed: 2000
Location: Oklahoma
Current Status: Endangered
Threat: Deterioration, Neglect
Wheelock Academy was founded in 1833, shortly after the forced migration known as the Trail of Tears. Alfred and Harriet Wright, New England missionaries, made their way west with Choctaws who had been forced out of Mississippi. The Wrights started a Presbyterian mission school for Native American girls and boys, worshiping under a large oak tree before Wheelock Academy was built. Wright and the Choctaws envisioned a school that would do more than the typical mission school. They wanted to go beyond rudimentary vocational skills and literacy and succeeded in developing a sophisticated educational program. Today, weather and a lack of funding threaten the academy's historic buildings. Decades of water damage and poor maintenance have caused heavy damage to roofs, walls and foundations.
Update
Choctaw Nation has kept their commitment to hire maintenance people to keep up the most urgent small problems on buildings such as Pushmataha Hall and others on the campus, and also have been successful in receiving an NEH consultation grant in 2006 to draw up an implementation piece to use for future restoration efforts. Another grant is in the works which would provide for a visitors center and a walking trail around the grounds. The tribal council authorized a stabilization project with RAM JACK, Inc. to shore up underneath the complete building of Pushmataha Hall at a total cost of $300,000. The project has been successfully completed but much work still to be done. The front part of the roof has been replaced but the back still not complete. A museum has been developed in the old teachers' dormitory, Leflore Hall and visitors continue to come; outside signage (8) visitors box displays funded by a transportaion grant through the Oklahoma Historical Society. Since opening Wheelock to outside visitors, over 13,000 have signed the site's books to date.
