After Forest Grove

Students at Chemawa, 1905

The Forest Grove Indian Training School moved to a site north of Salem in 1885. In its new location, the school was renamed the "Salem Indian Training School at Chemawa." By 1939, it was known as "Chemawa Indian School." It still exists today under that name, though its aims have changed dramatically since then. Today, Chemawa encourages Native students to study their ancestral histories, languages and cultures.

Alumni faced difficult circumstances when they returned home. A few students found success as intermediaries between their tribes and white society. Henry Sicade (Puyallup), for example, started an integrated public school for Native and white children. Many other students however returned to reservations that were economically depressed, while suffering trauma from the institionalized setting of the school. Many had to cobble together a living through seasonal labor, farming and domestic work.

After the school left for Salem, Pacific University took over its old campus in Forest Grove. The girls' dormitory had already burned down by that point, but the boys' dormitory remained. Pacific re-purposed the building as its first dormitory for male students, housing young men there from about 1892 to 1905. In 1908, a local developer bought the old building and demolished it in order to build a more modern residence. Some outbuildings like the former workshop stayed intact for a few more years, but today none of the original buildings from the Forest Indian School campus remain.