Emahaka Mission

Emahaka Mission was established in 1894 for the education of Seminole girls. Reverend W. P. Blake was the Superintendent. Miss Sadie Prickett, Principal Teacher, Miss Jennie Kesting, Intermediate Teacher, Miss Zanna Prickett, Primary Teacher, Miss C. M. Holmes, Instrumental and Vocal Music, Miss Lula G. Blake, Principal Matron, Miss Della Rankin and Miss Florence Talkington, Industrial Matrons, and Miss L.A. Elder, Missionary and Industrial Teacher. The curriculum ranged from elementary arithmetic and the first reader to natural philosophy and foreign languages.

1906 Letterhead 
including names of the Superintendent and members of the staff

The building was an impressive brick structure. Four stories high at its central point, with spacious porches on the two triple-storied wings that were accentuated by turrets on the southeast and northeast corners. It was built by the Seminole Nation at a cost of over $50,000 and is an exact replica of Mekasukey Academy, located four miles southwest of Seminole, which opened in 1891 for Seminole boys. Full capacity of the boarding department at Emahaka was 112 students. The primary class room was on the second or main floor, as was the superintendent's office and living quarters. There were also on the main floor the intermediate class rooms and the music class rooms, the latter which contained a number of pianos. The kitchen was in the basement, as well as the laundry and the dining room, which was furnished with long wooden tables, chairs and benches and a piano. The infirmary was on the third floor, the teachers and students roomed on the third and fourth floors, each of these floors having identical lavatory and bath arrangements in the central part of the building. Very modern for its time, the building had hot and cold running water on each floor, with steam heat as well as fireplaces applying warmth for the rooms.

 

 

 

 A post office was chartered on January 23, 1895 with R. Blake as the postmaster. The post office was discontinued January 16, 1906 after which the mail was taken and picked up at Holdenville. Mrs. Alice Brown Davis, who would later become the first woman Chief of the Seminole Nation, was superintendent of Emahaka Mission in 1908.

During the last years of the Seminole Nation, Emahaka Mission was combined with Mekasukey Academy in 1911. It was abandoned in 1914. The school accidentally burned in 1927 and all that remains of the institution are the ruins of the building.

The Oklahoma Historical Society has placed a marker 300 yards southwest of the ruins on U.S. Highway 27, five miles south of Wewoka.

 

 

 

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Linda Simpson

 08/02/2015