Cherokee Heritage Center

 The Cherokee Heritage Center  is a non-profit historical society and museum campus that seeks to preserve the historical and cultural artifacts, language, and traditional crafts of the Cherokee. The Heritage center also hosts the central genealogy database and genealogy research center for the Cherokee People. The Heritage Center is located on the site of the mid-19th century Cherokee Seminary building in Park Hill, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tahlequah, and was constructed near the old structure. It is a unit of the Cherokee National Historical Society and is sponsored by the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and other area tribes. The center was originally known as Tsa-La-Gi but is now known as the Cherokee Heritage Center.

The Cherokee Heritage center hosts an extensive collection of historic documents, art, cultural objects, and relics from the 1830s march along the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee National Museum exhibit hosts an extensive collection of ancient artifacts from the Cherokee culture from ancient to modern times.

The Ancient Village, located on the grounds of the Cherokee Heritage Center, is a complete reproduction of a mid-18th century Cherokee Township as it would have been encountered by European explorers or settlers. A guided tour of the village includes stops in a traditionally constructed, seven-sided council house and a brush arbor as well as demonstrations of traditional crafts, hunting techniques, religious and cultural practices. Visitors are invited to try their hand at using a blowgun and playing stickball during the tour.

Also on the grounds is the Adams Corner Rural Village which depicts a typical Cherokee settlement after removal to Indian Territory.

Retired Army Colonel Marty Hagerstrand is credited as the founder of the Cherokee Heritage Center in 1962. Col. Hagerstrand had begun research in Cherokee history and culture, first as a hobby in the late 1950s. Joining him in this endeavor was Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation William Wayne Keeler. Chief Keeler had publicly stated that he supported preservation of Cherokee culture and heritage.

The concept behind the Heritage Center was economic development combined with cultural preservation. Hagerstrand recognized the cultural value of the Cherokees in Tahlequah, and Chief Keeler helped him to understand and appreciate more. The first newspaper in Oklahoma was the Cherokee Advocate, published September 26, 1844.

The first four years the Heritage Center was in the basement of Mr. Hagerstrand's home. In 1966, a formal design contract was negotiated with the architectural-engineering firm of Hudgins, Thompson, Ball, and Associates (of Tulsa, Oklahoma), which included a provision that Charles "Chief" Boyd would be the designer of the project. Mr. Boyd and his family then moved to Tulsa from Colorado and joined the firm.

Resource materials on Cherokee culture and history were available in the Cherokee Collection at the library of the local college – Northeastern State University (NSU). There was also a collection of papers and pamphlets at the Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa and pertinent reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. The late Dr. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick, a noted scholar of Cherokee heritage and student of Cherokee history (then Professor of Music at Southern Methodist University) offered substantial guidance and technical advice during the planning period and during construction of the village. Date and descriptions developed by Drs. Kneberg and Lewis at the University of Tennessee were also helpful. Architect Boyd also researched the Cherokee past, with particular attention to structures, and arrived independently at a "format" for the ancient village which corresponded basically to previous concepts developed by Hagerstrand and Kilpatrick.

Actual work commenced on the site of the future Heritage Center on February 23, 1966, under the supervision of Col. Hagerstrand who had agreed to terminate his private business interests and work full-time on the project as General Manager. The Cherokee Foundation, a private charitable foundation organized and largely maintained by Chief Keeler at Bartlesville, Oklahoma agreed to underwrite his salary and expenses during the construction period.

Here is a local Business that supports the community 

 

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475599 e 815 rd Stilwell Oklahoma 74960

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