The Miami Indian Village School, one of Indiana's best kept secrets!

A place where the Miami of Indiana’s language, culture and way of life are taught to future generations! 

Along the north bank of the Mississinewa River and a few miles northwest of Marion, Indiana, Chief Meshingomesia of the Miami of Indiana owned an eight and a half-mile long reservation. 

In 1860, The Miami Indian Village School was built upon the reservation alongside a Baptist church. Classes were held in this schoolhouse from 1860 to 1898 for Miami of Indiana children to learn how to assimilate with the American way of life. Otho Winger, who later would become the president (1911-1941) of Manchester University in North Manchester Indiana, taught at the school from 1895 to 1898. After 1898, the schoolhouse sat empty until the 1930s when it was relocated to a farm and used as a corn crib. The reservation was eventually forgotten by local Hoosiers for many years and the school house that was now a corn crib eventually was known only as a corn crib.

Wap Shing, our former Spiritual Leader, expressed his desire to see the school house back in the hands of the Tribe to Joan Calvert, who then took the initiative to locate the school and the farm it was sitting on as a corn crib. Mrs. Calvert discovered that the farm owner was Mr. Larry Stuber and began to have conversations with him expressing the Miami of Indiana’s willingness to buy and relocate it back to the former reservation lands. 

On September 19, 1998, Mr. Stuber donated the schoolhouse back. It was disassembled and then reassembled piece by piece except the floor, which was moved as one solid piece and set on the new foundation. The chalkboard in the schoolhouse is original to the building, a teacher’s desk from the time period was found, and the student desks and shutters were made to fit the time period. 

Today the Miami of Indiana use the schoolhouse as the educational source it once was, but now to teach the Miami of Indiana’s language, culture and way of life instead of replacing these with American ways. 

The schoolhouse is open one weekend a year in late October to the public during the annual commemoration of the War of 1812 battle on the Mississinewa River, which took place only one mile north of the current location of the school house. It can also be viewed or toured by schools and other groups by appointment. Contact the Tribal Office for more information!

Won’t you please help us?

Maintaining this historical building (that we have on the National Historic Registry), requires ongoing maintenance and repair. Since the Tribe's federal recognition was illegally revoked, we currently do not qualify for federal grants or funds other Native American Tribes are eligible for and must raise all funds needed to maintain the schoolhouse. 

Won't you consider helping us honor our past ancestors and teach the Miami of Indiana’s culture and language through the schoolhouse to current and future generations of Miami and all peoples?