Oklahoma History Center Presents Program: Development of the Indian Territory

Contact: Jason Harris
(405) 522-0785

Oklahoma City, OK
February 12, 2009
For Immediate Release

A program focusing on the early development of the Indian Territory from removal to the Dawes Act will begin at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday February 18, 2009 at the Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive. The program is free and the public is invited. Dr. Gerard Baker, formerly Superintendent of Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Lawton, will present the program.

Gerard A. Baker, PhD, Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial has been with the Federal Government for 27 years; 24 years with the National Park Service and 3 years with the United States Forest Service. In his distinguished career, Dr. Baker has served in a number of key positions, including Superintendent of Little Big Horn National Battlefield Monument, for which he received the NPS Intermountain Regional Director's Award for Cultural Resource Management in 1997; Superintendent of Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma where he received the U.S. Department of the Interior's Superior Service Award; and the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, where he oversaw trail management and the traveling exhibit "Corps of Discovery II: 200 Years to the Future." He worked with approximately 58 American Indian Tribes and 19 trail States from Monticello, Virginia, to Fort Clatsop, Oregon.

In May 2004, he became Superintendent of Mount Rushmore which welcomes almost 3 million visitors a year. Dr. Baker is a full-blood member of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, Mandaree, North Dakota.

This program is a public lecture discussing the changes with Indian Territory from the time of Indian Removals through the Dawes Act. The presenter will discuss both tribal adjustments and political transformations within Indian America and the United States. This program will focus on the changes happening in Indian Territory during this period in American History.

The galleries of the Oklahoma History Center will open to the public at 6:00 p.m., with the program scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m. The program should last about an hour.

Fore more information, contact Jason Harris at (405) 522-0785 or by email at jharris@okhistory.org.

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