Pipestone Indian Agency (Minnesota)

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Mostly Mdewakanton Sioux in southern Minnesota

History
The Pipestone Indian Boarding School in Pipestone, Minnesota was established in 1892 as a nonreservation boarding school. This school was assigned agency duties and operated as the Pipestone Agency, beginning in 1914. When the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians closed in 1934, Pipestone Agency acquired their records. The agency and its associated school closed in 1953.

Records
The majority of records of individuals were those created by the agencies. Some records may be available to tribal members through the tribal headquarters.They were (and are) the local office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and were charged with maintaining records of the activities of those under their responsibility. Among these records are:


 * Allotment records
 * Annuity rolls
 * Census records
 * Correspondence
 * Health records
 * Reports
 * School census and records
 * Vital records

Some records of the Pipestone Agency are in the Central Plains Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Kansas City, including some records of the Birch Cooley Day School, Pipestone Boarding School, and the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1914, 1918-1919, and 1914-1939. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, roll 385. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the FamilySearch Library and its FamilySearch centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Pipestone Agency, 1910-1937, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, rolls 107-108, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City (their ).