To highlight some of the CPN Cultural Heritage Center’s archival holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The Higbee family traces its roots back to the St. Joseph River Valley and has a long legacy serving as teachers, medical professionals, CPN employees, Tribal leaders and more.
A discussion at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Family Reunion Festival has motivated members of the Tescier family to ensure that Potawatomi history is included in a Harrah, Oklahoma, historical society’s museum. The land for the town’s original site was donated by Tribal member Louis Navarre, who was first to arrive at his allotment in the 1870s.
To highlight some of the CPN Cultural Heritage Center’s archival holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The Hardin family has a long history of service to the Nation, through elected and volunteer leadership, military service, trades and more.
The earliest communities in what would become Oklahoma were born from the hard work and generosity of families like the Darlings. The Hownikan traces Darling family history through archival records at the CHC.
To highlight some of the Cultural Heritage Center archive holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The Tescier family ancestors were front row witnesses to history and the birth of what would become Oklahoma. They lived through the Land Run, endured the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and have served as elected officials of the CPN government and holders of cultural teachings over many generations.
The Young family was among the many Potawatomi who decided to become U.S. citizens and receive plots of allotted land in Indian Territory through the Treaty of 1867. They moved to Indian Territory in 1871 and settled in the community of Pleasant Prairie, which was established 5 miles northwest of present-day Wanette. Later, the Youngs would move to their allotment near Oberlin.
The Welds were among the families who made the difficult decision to leave Kansas to carve out a new life for themselves and future generations on the plains of Indian Territory in the late 1890s. Despite the hardships, the Weld children would persevere.
To highlight some of the CPN archive holdings at the Nation’s Cultural Heritage Center, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The Melott family was profoundly influential in the founding of present-day Wanette, Oklahoma.
To highlight some of the CHC’s archival holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The LeClair family history can be traced back to Wisconsin and Illinois, through war, forced removals, and kinship ties with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, to present-day Pottawatomie County. Read more at cpn.news/leclair.
Through their early years in Potawatomi ancestral homelands in the north, a forced migration to Kansas and many challenges creating a new legacy in southern Pottawatomie County, the Lareau family drew upon their strength and resolve to persevere.