LOGAN – The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) has been recognized by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) for its restoration of murals from the non-defunct Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City.
Located on the camps of Utah State University, the NEHMA received the AASLH Award of Excellence in June for its year-long display of restored murals originally created by Native American students of the Intermountain school.
That exhibit closed in January of this year.
“This project has been the most rewarding experience in my museum career,” according to Katie Lee-Koven, the NEHMA executive director.
Lee-Koven said that her role in the mural restoration effort was to act as a facilitator ensuring that goals of the Intermountain Indian School alumni were also the museum’s goals.
“They told us that they wanted to be sure that the Intermountain Indian School was not forgotten, because it played such a significant role in their lives,” she explains. “So that’s what we focused on – sharing the school’s history and sharing it through their lens.”
The Intermountain Indian School was one of the 523 Native American boarding schools that dotted the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and one of the few that alumni remember fondly.
From 1950 to 1984, the school functioned a federally funded residential boarding school for school-aged Native American children.
Originally intended only for Navajo children, by the time of its closure, the Intermountain school hosted children from as many as one hundred Native American nations.
Entitled Repainting the I: The Intermountain Indian School Murals, the NEHMA exhibit opened in January of 2025.
The exhibit featured 11 student-created murals that once adorned the school’s hallways and dormitories, which required significant stabilization, cleaning and repair after being rediscovered during the demolition of former campus buildings in Brigham City.
Restored in close collaboration with Intermountain alumni, scholars, conservators and tribal leaders, the NEHMA exhibit marked the first time these restored artworks were publicly displayed.
While expressing gratitude for the AASLH award, Lee-Koven emphasizes that each important decision in the restoration process, including the interpretative text for the murals, were made by former alumni of the school.
The AASLH awards program was initiated in 1945 to establish and encourage standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history throughout the United States.
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art at Utah State University fosters engagement with American Art from the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on art in the Western United States, to facilitate learning and promote dialogue about ideas important to the people of Utah.