• Avoca, Holy Child Academy of St. Rose opened in 1880 or 1883 by the Sisters of Holy Jesus as a school for girls. It closed in either 1893 or 1903, then reopened in 1905 – 1910 as St. Bernard's Hall/St. Francis Xavier's Industrial School for boys Six native girls died of disease, probably tuberculosis, while at the school: Lucy Walters, Mary Josephine Bordeaux, Alma Pasukaduta Parient, Inez Brugier, Mary Xavier Tasunka and Bertha Tapantinwin. The girls were buried at the St. Rose of Lima Cemetery. There were no grave markers for them, so the Catholic Daughters took up the project of raising money for a memorial stone in 2023. [The Courier - September 2023 by Diocese of Winona-Rochester. The Native American Girls' School in Avoca: Reaching Through Time, History, Faith and Culture in Southwestern Minnesota]
  • Bena, Bena Boarding School, by Lake Winnibigoshish, 1901-1911. [When Everybody Called Me Gabe-bines, "Forever-Flying-Bird": Teachings from Paul Buffalo. 35Boarding School Days, Timothy G. Roufs (Ed.). University of Minnesota Duluth.]
  • Beaulieu, Wild Rice River Boarding and Day School, 1844-1915, reservation school.
  • Cass Lake, Cass Lake Boarding School, 1911-1919, reservation school.  [The Bena, Cass Lake, and Leech Lake Boarding schools are separate schools that were located in the same general area. The Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (IA Report) for the Year 1904 lists them as separate schools.]
  • Clontarf, St. Paul's Industrial School, 1881-1895, cemetery memorial for students that died.
  • Collegeville, St. John's Indian Industrial School at St. John’s Abbey, 1885-1896.
  • Cross Lake, Cross Lake Indian Residential School/Ponemah Boarding School.
  • Graceville, Covenant of our Lady of the Lake, Sisters of St. Joseph, 1885-1896, reopened as St. Mary’s Academy 1900-1951.
  • Morris, Sisters of Mercy, 1887-1896, became federal government Morris Industrial School for Indians, 1898-1908. Its students were mostly from the Turtle Mountain Reservation of Ojibways in North Dakota. One building remains on the University of Minnesota Morris campus. There are rumors of a cemetery on the campus but records have been studied and areas searched without any proof of one. [Ahern, Wilbert H.  Indian Education and Bureaucracy, The School at Morris, 1887-1909. Minnesota History, Minnesota Historical Society, Fall 1984.]
  • Nett Lake, Nett Lake Boarding and Day School, 1907-1931, operator not identified.
  • Pipestone, Pipestone Indian School, 1893-1959, federal government school. Pipestone was established in 1894 and closed in 1953. The school was operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as one of its 18 non-reservation boarding schools and last of such to be closed. The site of the school is adjacent to Pipestone National Monument, and is now used by the national monument and Minnesota West Community and Technical College.
  • Ponsford, St. Theodore’s, Pine Point Boarding and Day School.
  • Red Lake, Red Lake Boarding and Day School, 1877-1935, a federal government school
  • Red Lake, St. Mary's Mission Boarding/Red Lake Mission Boarding School, 1889-1946. Still open in 2024, operated by the Crookston diocese, as a tuition day school.
  • St. Joseph, St. Benedict's Mission and School, later St. Benedict’s Academy at College of St. Benedict, 1884-1898.
  • Tower, Vermillion Lake Indian School, 1899-1954, a reservation school.
  • Walker/Onigum, Leech Lake Indian Boarding School, 1902-1921, reservation school
  • Walker, Ah-gwah-ching Sanatorium, Eagle/Indian building accepted tuberculous children and started a school in 1940s.
  • White Earth Boarding School, 1871 - ?, Catholic school, first to open in Minnesota, closed, became St. Benedict’s Orphan School and, White Earth Mission Boarding School, 1887-1945.









Native American Boarding Schools in Minnesota

Copyright © Minnesota's Tuberculosis Sanatoriums. All rights reserved.

Until November 15, 1924, when the day school at Onigum was converted to a sanatorium, there was no hospital in Minnesota dedicated to treating or isolating Native Americans with tuberculosis.  While white children infected with tuberculosis were being admitted to special sanatoriums and schools in Minnesota, Indian children were receiving almost no help. Instead, thousands were sent to boarding schools, where the death rate from infectious diseases could be even higher than on the reservation. We may never know how many Indian children died at boarding schools although attempts are being made to locate and study old records. The register of the Clontarf school, archived by the Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, lists 18 boys as having died between 1884 and 1891. Several entries note consumption, or tuberculosis, as the cause of death. 


The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has more information about boarding or residential schools in general and efforts to understand and address the trauma caused by federal policies. Below is a list of schools that operated in Minnesota.