Gilcrease Museum, Cherokee Nation to celebrate voluntary repatriation of 149 year old printing press

WHAT:
The Gilcrease Museum and Cherokee Nation will celebrate the voluntary repatriation of 149-year-old Cherokee Advocate printing press

WHEN:
Tuesday, August 6 at 1 p.m.

WHERE:
Cherokee National Peace Pavilion
177 S. Water Ave.
Tahlequah, Oklahoma

WHO:
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr.
Gilcrease Museum Executive Director Brian Lee Whisenhunt
Cabinet of the Cherokee Nation
Council of the Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Phoenix Editor Tyler Thomas and staff

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - The Cherokee Nation and Gilcrease Museum will celebrate Tuesday the voluntary repatriation of the Cherokee Advocate printing press in Tahlequah.

The Gilcrease Museum has returned to the Cherokee Nation the 149-year-old printing press once used to publish the Cherokee Advocate Newspaper in the Cherokee language. The printing press was owned by the tribe until 1906 when the press was ordered closed by the federal government. It was sold in 1911 by the federal government to the owner of the Fort Gibson New Era and eventually ended up in a newspaper office in Wagoner, before being purchased by Thomas Gilcrease in the 1940s and added to his collection of American art and artifacts.

Gilcrease Museum, which is owned by the City of Tulsa and managed by The University of Tulsa, has spent the past year in a voluntary repatriation effort to get the printing press back into the hands of the tribe. The City Parks board voted last month on the deaccession, and Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum signed the deaccession of the printing press from the collection.

"Like many tribes across Indian Country, the Cherokee Nation has been stripped of numerous historic belongings over the past century at the direction of the federal government, and in which are now in museums or collections," said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. "It's truly inspiring that Gilcrease Museum has voluntarily offered to return this historic piece of our identity to its origins, back into the hands of the tribe."

On Tuesday, leaders from the Cherokee Nation and Gilcrease Museum will celebrate at the Cherokee National Peace Pavilion and then take photos at the Cherokee National Supreme Court Museum, where the printing press is housed.