“The hope of civilizing these Utes centers in the reservation schools.”
Hundreds of Ute children worked, learned and lived in two federal boarding schools on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The Uintah boarding school in Whiterocks opened on Jan. 1, 1881. The Ouray boarding school in Randlett opened a dozen years later, in April 1893. The two schools merged in 1905 at Whiterocks, which closed as a boarding school in 1952.
These excerpts from annual reports describe how the Utah boarding schools worked to assimilate children while also documenting decades of resistance by Ute parents.
Children’s daily chores at the Uintah and Ouray boarding schools included “the most distasteful drudgery.”
When a Senate subcommittee came to Salt Lake City, Ute parents and others described chilling conditions at the Whiterocks school.
Schedules obtained from the National Archives at Denver reveal how regimented life remained for children at Whiterocks in the 1930s.
Using federal reports and newspaper coverage, The Tribune has documented nearly 60 student deaths, a likely undercount.
Episcopalian Rev. Quentin France Kolb, who was a Ute, said of his time in the Uintah Boarding School: "It was an experience probably that I would not give up, but I certainly would not wish it on anyone."
These records include student enrollment and attendance reports, correspondence about employees, school schedules and more, many with indexes to allow readers to search for student names.
This spreadsheet includes links to more than 150 photographs of members of the Ute Indian Tribe, from the early 1900s at the reservation boarding schools in Whiterocks and Randlett to Bear Dances through the decades to students today.
