Cherokee Female Seminary

Cherokee Female Seminary
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Front of the building
Location	Northeastern State University campus, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, United States
Coordinates	35°55′13″N 94°58′12″W
Built	1889
Architect	C.E. Illsley
NRHP reference No.	73001558
Added to NRHP	April 5, 1973

Cherokee Female Seminary graduating class of 1902, photographed by Jennie Ross Cobb (Cherokee)

The Cherokee Female Seminary, (not to be confused with the first Cherokee Female Seminary), serves as the centerpiece of Northeastern State University ("NSU"), located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, United States. The building was constructed to replace the original Cherokee Female Seminary that burnt to the ground Easter Sunday, 1887. The Cherokee Council chose to rebuild the school on a 40-acre (160,000 m²) site north of Tahlequah, near Hendricks Spring. Two years later, on May 7, 1889, the dedication ceremonies were held in honor of the new building. The Female Seminary was owned and operated by the Cherokee Nation until March 6, 1909 when the State Legislature of Oklahoma passed an act providing for the creation and location of Northeastern State Normal School at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and for the purchase from the Cherokee Tribal Government of the building, land, and equipment of the Cherokee Female Seminary. At the start of the next academic year, on September 14, the first classes were held at the newly created Northeastern State Normal School, now NSU.

Female seminaries were a larger cultural movement across the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, by which time they had taken over the role played traditionally by the boarding school, which had offered a more family-like atmosphere.

Seminary Hall

Seminary Hall is the oldest building on NSU's campus. It was built in 1889 by St. Louis architect C.E. Illsley, who designed it in the Romanesque Revival style complete with fortress-like turrets flanking the main entrance as well as a clock tower that resembles a church steeple rising two stories above the rest of the building. In 1994 the building was completely restored. The building underwent another major renovation starting in 2020, using a $4 million grant from the Cherokee Nation. That work included using salvaged wood and brick from the 1800’s to match the original building materials where needed, replacing aluminum window frames from a prior restoration effort with custom wood frames, and implementing half-octagon-shaped roof dormers as they were drawn in the original architect’s plans.

The building now houses classrooms along with academic and faculty offices. It was the first campus classroom building wired for multimedia instruction. At the main entrance of the building is featured three Indian murals painted in the 1930s as a WPA project by Kiowa artists Stephen Mopope and Jack Hokeah and Pawnee artist Albin Jake.

See also

• Isabel Cobb
• Lulu M. Hefner
• Rachel Caroline Eaton
• Cherokee Male Seminary
• Female seminaries
• Women in education in the United States

External links

• Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. OK-23, "Cherokee Female Seminary, Northeastern Oklahoma State University Campus, Tahlequah, Cherokee County, OK"