Memorial Day Weekend IV - Riverside School

After leaving Memory Lane Cemetery and having our traditional pit stop in Anadarko, we head out of town on some highway or other.  I would look it up, but what's the point?  I always forget!  Getting to Eakly is just one of those things that I have known how to do my whole life.  I don't know the darn names of the highways!  :-)


So we head out of town.  Before we get very far, a historical marker appears on the right.  It is in sad shape, but still plenty readable:

The marker says:
Riverside School
Begun by U.S. Quaker Agents, 1871


This school opened at the Indian agency on Sugar Creek with 8 pupils.  A new building was erected as a boarding school in 1872, for Wichita and Caddo children.  Fire in 1878 destroyed the school.  It soon reopened in a new building here on the Washita and continues as the oldest boarding school in the United states Indian service.
Oklahoma Historical Society and State Highway Commission 1970


I am aware that the Riverside Indian School is still around but I had forgotten that it was a boarding school.  That is something you think of more in Europe and Yankee territory!  :-)  And beyond that, there are about 800 students there?!  I had no idea it was that large!!  Peruse the school website some.  There are some interesting things there, the most interesting of which may just be where Anadarko got its name.  Apparently it is derived from an old Caddo word meaning 'a place of the bumblebees.'